Obelisk chair
This obelisk is actually a modular stack that can be found in Dedon’s furniture collection. When the gang comes by, you simply disassemble it into two small lounge chairs, two medium lounge chairs and a table. Everything is made from hand-woven synthetic Hularo fiber which makes it resistant to UV rays, extreme temperatures and any type of wear and tear. This is an interesting way of evolving from the boring folding table and chairs to something that’s somewhat close to an art work.
Recycled paper table
Amazing, but this table is made out of recycled paper. Matt Gagnon wanted to create a visually heavy object that would appear eroded. But concrete was not an option, so he used a clustered mass of recycled paper instead. Laser technology was used to achieve the smooth cuts and sanding for perfect edges. The final touch was oil which created an elegant finish. The many slots can store newspapers and magazines while the piece of furniture itself can be used both as a table and as a bench. Fancy way of creating a paper storage for paper.
Splitting candle
This Bravit candle offers a real show while burning down. Once the thin wax layer is ablaze, the flame follows the almost graphic design of the wick. While your dinner goes on, the candle keeps playing with fire, creating two, three, or sometimes even five flames at the same time. A great way to light up the atmosphere.
Bravit is made out completely of paraffin with cotton wicks.
The candle was designed by Christoph van Bömmel and won a Design Plus Award.
The Fat House
The BALTIC Centre for Contemporary Art in Gateshead, UK, presented some interesting works of Erwin Wurm. The most terrifying is “The Fat House”, a life-sized house that’s very fat. Everything is weird about it, from the roof which expands to cover it all, to the video playing inside, asking questions like “Am I a house?”. And this is not all, you can also see sculptures of Wurm after swallowing the earth, in its shape that we all know today: a globe and in its disc shape as ancient people taught. And what about seeing a truck climb up the wall?
Haunted houses
In the Taiwanese area, called San Zhi, there is an entire residential area abandoned. It seems it was constructed in the early ’80, but it was never finished because of the numerous work accidents. It should have been a luxurious vacation spot for the rich people in Taipei but nobody wanted to live there when they heard about the weird things happening. Now the place is thought to be haunted by the workers who died in vain and are not remembered. Demolishing is not an option either, because of the Asian belief that the homes of spirits are sacred and should not be disturbed. Anyway it seems creepy I think, not only because its deserted look but because of the strange architecture as well.
The bridge as a change
When entering the cathedral you find yourself in front of an empty expanse of water with only one step at its edge. As you walk on, steps rise out of the lake, one by one, and fall back as you pass. You just feel like walking on water while alone in the silence of an old church (one of the earliest examples of poured concrete construction). Even with two thirds of its height submerged in the man-made lake, this sacred place is not less imposing. When you reach the middle and stop to have a look, you notice that light, coming trough the long, narrow windows, reflects itself on the water’s surface, creating a perfect mirror. You are now thirty steps and twelve meters from the shore. When you’ll decide to turn around you’ll come back on the same way you came, your height activating the same mechanism that moves each step. The “bridge” is a site-specific installation commissioned for Dilston Grove and designed by Michel Cross. “It’s the first piece in a new series of works which take dream-like solutions or scenarios and insert them into the real world as an alternative view on how it might be.” The language used reject stability in favor of movement while trying to keep flexible and simple but complex in the reaction it creates.
Just like he did in his past works, Cross wants to awake feelings or physical sensations rather than designing just nice looking or functional objects. “All these works seek to achieve a kind of beauty in the way they are used, striving to be engaging and intriguing in the way they are experienced and not only in how they look.”
