The concluding part of our survey of the Design Academy Eindhoven’s blockbuster graduation show takes us on a magical mystery tour to the world of strange materials, clever constructions and thought-provoking concepts.
Wood has been used as a construction material since time immemorial. Its physical properties are well understood, including its tendency to shrink and expand with changing levels of moisture and pressure. With this in mind, designer Nic Frehner developed a technique of steaming, pressurising and drying pieces of poplar wood so that they first shrink to fit inside a joint or bracket and then expand to fill the gap, thereby creating a tight connection. However, the wood will need to be kept moist all the time, otherwise as the wood dries up and shrinks the joints will become loose. Constructed using this methodology, his Active Wood collection of chairs and other furniture take on a wild and natural appearance, not only because they do not have any screws or nails, but also because they need to be watered and tended to, just like real trees. It is a way to reconnect us to nature and a reminder that wood is a dynamic, evolving material.
Jules Sgro is also interested in how wood is used in construction, but his approach is much more archaeological. At first sight, his Systems of Mutation in the Garden of Stone side tables may look like lumps of misshapened concrete propped up by sticks of wood, but their design is laden with layers of meaning, waiting for the armchair archaeologist to unearth. The table is a metaphorical excavation site: the wooden poles are reminiscent of the supporting beams in the tunnels and caves whilst the concrete represents the weathered rock face that gradually buries the wood. Over time, the materials merge into one, raising questions as to what is permanent and which supports what. Strange symbols and shapes carved into the concrete and wood add to the mystery. This is furniture as a means of storytelling, spinning a narrative that spans the organic, industrial and mystical.
Readers who are now sinking under the weight of conceptual designs will be pleased to know that not all graduate works require a doctorate in Philosophy to understand. String Swing by Eli de Boer is a delightfully madcap invention that combines a swinging bench with a musical instrument. The bench comes in two halves, attached to each other with circumnavigating piano wires, with the top half suspended from the ceiling. Players sit back-to-back astride the bench and make sounds by plucking the wires, changing the pitch as they adjust the tension of the wires by shifting their weight. This intriguing contraption is intended more as a playful way to explore sound creation than as a serious musical instrument, which is just as well as you would probably need an advanced degree in body coordination to play proper music on it.
Emilie Sandré is another designer who strives to foster playfulness and creativity. Much like the way Lego has gone from free-form creation to following pre-set designs, Emilie noticed that children’s play costumes are now mostly based on well known characters and gendered stereotypes, unlike the way she used to create costumes from odd pieces of garment and jewellery pilfered from her parents’ wardrobes when she was a child. She wants to fire up kids’ imagination, encouraging them to write their own stories instead of following a script. Her solution is The Wardrobe is Open, a modular costume kit made up of pieces of fabric laser-cut into nine carefully designed shapes. These can be tied and attached together to create original outfits that certainly don’t resemble Disney characters. The fabrics come from discarded sample books and other dead stock sources, which adds to the variety of designs available and reduces waste at the same time.
The modular components that make up George Nöfer’s gun.stl, on the other hand, are far more sinister. Blueprints for 3D-printed firearms are now widely available on the internet. The designer downloaded these instructions and recreated components such as springs and screws. Thankfully, instead of building a gun, he used them to construct entirely harmless sculptures as well as a table lamp. His project is less about upcycling but more to question what makes an object harmless or harmful, as well as exploring the threats and moral ambiguity of technology.
Repurposing discarded items into new designs is a common theme amongst the graduates, a reflection as much of their boundless creativity as of their limited budgets. One of my favourite projects is Light Light Light by Roel Jansen, a collection of industrial style lights with moving parts fashioned from found mechanical components. They look like a family of lost robots, intent on putting the fun into functional. This project also happens to be the winner of the (probably) prestigious Kick That Ass award, so it’s clearly a fan favourite.
Sean Schwerdtfeger is also in the business of making lights from scrap materials, elevating them by applying the techniques, precision and craftsmanship of jewellery making. His project is titled Re, reflecting his approach of remaking, reviving and refreshing discarded objects, giving waste resources a new remit.
The starting point of Noé Garcia’s Industrial Fragment project is also discarded waste materials. His hunting ground is warehouses, construction sites and other temples of mass production. Instead of transforming the waste materials he reconstructs them into new designs with minimal intervention. The resulting collection of chairs and other furniture is a showcase of their components’ intrinsic value, finding beauty not in the new but in the forgotten.
The opposite approach is taken by Julia Joosten. The waste she covets comes from nail salons - acrylic nails, nail polish, gel polish and even real nails. She transforms these into a resin-like material which she uses to create the Gemnails collection of jewellery and furniture. You can just about make out fragments of old acrylic nails in some of these pieces, which is interesting. The collection is a showcase of creativity, craftsmanship, sustainability as well as beauty, both conventional and unconventional.
In contrast, the sources of Jack Austin’s material of choice are far more natural. In The Floor is Lava, he attempts to recreate the natural basalt formations in the Inner Hebrides archipelago of Scotland. Basalt is formed by layers of cooling magma but he wisely decided against recreating a volcanic eruption in his workshop. Instead, he experimented with combining molten basalt and glass in different states and proportions until the process yielded a seductively dark and glossy material similar to obsidian. He uses the material to create vessels in the shape of whiskey bottles, thus reaffirming their connection to Scotland in both the geographical and cultural senses.
Back in the world of furniture, Lilas Patard follows a long line of precedents and created a voluptuous armchair inspired by the human body. In addition to generous volumes and gracious curves, she also upholstered the armchair in a custom knitted fabric using a series of pleats that reveal a different colour as the fabric is stretched. The armchair is comfortable and comforting, embracing the sitter like a warm hug. This is part of the designer’s vision to show how objects can be humanised, in stark contrast to a world where (especially female) bodies are Objectified.
When it comes to comfort and fun, can anything beat an inflatable beanbag pouf sort of thing? Jeanne Mora thinks so and seeks to improve the construction of inflatable furniture by developing Inflatable Knit, a bulbous 3D fabric that resembles a giant sheet of bubble wrap. By using the fabric to form different shapes and to control how the bubbles are inflated, this process can create chairs and other furniture in intriguing new forms, opening up new avenues for industrial production.
Another material ripe for reinvention is plastic foam, widely used to create soft padding for chairs, sofas, mattresses and beyond. Before foam became ubiquitous there was horsehair, a material Valentin Dugrais seeks to revive in his project Crinem Equus. However, instead of using horsehair as an invisible stuffing material, he stiffens it with natural latex and uses it to create the entire structure of the chair. This is no mere celebration of an age-old unsung hero of upholstery but an unadulterated showcase of horsehair in its full (and slightly scratchy) glory.
Many people are understandably queasy about the use of leather in fashion and furniture. Designer Emma Werkhoven realised how little she knew about the sourcing of leather and decided to confront her concerns about animal welfare head-on. In her project The Weight of the Hide she participated in every step of the sourcing process, from shooting a wild boar in the forests of Sweden to skinning the animal, tanning the hide and finally using the leather to make a chair. She undertook every procedure with great care and attention, culminating in a chair that is simple but infused with respect. The hide takes centre stage, its contours dictating the form of the seat. Every detail is considered, down to the shape of the rivets which are inspired by the bullets used to hunt the boar. The chair is not a trophy, but a strong link to where the raw materials come from and a reminder of how we should honour them.
Designer Jonghoo Jeong also sought to confront his feelings, in his case guilt. More specifically, his guilt from using jerrycans to dispose of toxic materials from his workshop and how he would nevertheless carry on doing so regardless. I feel the same every time I “forgot” to pick up the dog’s poo. The designer addresses this cycle of guilt with his project System of Atonement, a towering sculpture built with jerrycans. The sculpture incorporates a small fountain in a stained glass bowl, a symbol of the ritual of atonement, with the water circulating round and round in a closed loop system, much like the way the designer is stuck in a never-ending cycle of wrongdoing, confession, atonement and wrongdoing again. The project makes you question whether all the collective atonement and building of monuments by mankind are just rituals to assuage our guilt whilst avoiding real change. Like art, the best designs are those that make you think.
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Really fascinating work covered here. Nice piece.
Émilie Sandré’s project “The Wardrobe is Open” is pure genius !
Play is a very serious occupation for children — especially now that they can create their own garments !