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exploring the potential of copper in design world

issue 31 March 2012www.copperindesign.org

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Endless

Cage-B Bookcase

Line Of Control

The Microbial Home

U336 Pendant Light

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furnishing

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lighting

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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

Si Dix Et Six Plis...

Bronze Playground

Random Orbit

Steampunk Mouse

Arc Handleobjects

lighting

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objects

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Ross LovegroveEndless 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

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Massimo Castagna4

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

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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

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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

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Subodh GuptaLine Of Control

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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

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Philips DesignThe Microbial Home

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“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

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Francois Hurtaud Si Dix Et Six Plis Brillent

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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

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Tom OtternessBronze Playground

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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

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Rodolfo Dordoni Arc Handle

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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

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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

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Alex NeretinSteampunk Mouse

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