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Kinetic Rain

Fold Forming Jewels

Fortuna Table

Casiopea Lamp

objects

lighting

Charlotte Binobjects

furnishing

exploring the potential of copper in design world

issue 36 August 2012www.copperindesign.org

copperindesign

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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

Food Tools

Beer Pub 1516

True Colours

Medici Console

Sprue Candelabras

furnishing

objects

lighting

objects

lighting

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Joachim SauterKinetic Rain

In the course of refurbishment works, Joachim Sauter and his Berlin-based Art+Com were commissioned by Changi Airport Group in Singapore to create a signature art installation for the Departure-Check-in hall of Terminal 1. The sculpture aims to be a source of identity for its location, and provides a moment for passengers to contemplate and reflect despite the busy travelling atmosphere. Kinetic Rain features 1,216 copper raindrops spanning 75 square meters, making it one of the largest kinetic sculptures in the world. These droplets are suspended from the ceiling on thin steel wire and are controlled by small motors, which move them around so they look like they’re floating as they move through the air in fluid, mesmerising, synchronised motions.Kinetic Rain follows a 15-minute, computationally-designed choreography, where the two parts move together in unison, sometimes mirroring, sometimes complementing, and sometimes responding to each other. In addition, several spot light sources mounted below the installation create a play of shadows on the terminal’s ceiling as they illuminate the movement of the rain droplets. Link: www.artcom.de

art

John S. Brana4

Fold Forming Jewels

Modern fold forming is considered a combination of traditional metalwork and origami. It’s about allowing the metal to fold in natural ways according to its plasticity instead of forcing form. When one does not fight to form the metal, forming becomes extremely rapid and efficient. Copper is an ideal medium, often used in jewellery, for its brilliant luster and versatility. While fold forms are beautiful in themselves, they are often used as components in more complex pieces. Once basic folds have been mastered, fold forms can be manipulated, sliced, and rejoined.Jewellery designer John S. Brana has designed an exceptional variety of distinctive, fold-formed, handmade copper earrings, bracelets and necklaces, and bronze and copper gemstone rings.Brana develops highly complex relief forms that are produced with just a single sheet of copper, creating innovative shapes that have never been seen before.

Link: www.ilovecopperjewelry.com

objects

Fortuna Table is a new contemporary dining table designed and made by Portuguese furniture design brand Boca do Lobo. Fortuna represents the materialisation of luck and fortune, a symbol of the control of life and the definiton of fate. An elegant composition of scaled brass tubes supports the outlines of log rings in brass, echoing the lifetime of a tree. The table is available in polished and brushed brass.

Link: www.bocadolobo.com

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Boca Do Lobo Fortuna Table

furnishing

If light is the theme, and in this case it is, perhaps a sun or star, or even better a galaxy represents light. Casiopea seeks to recover light as an element capable of modifying our emotions and perceptions. Darkness causes fear and our intelligence has enabled us to leave it behind, but that independence of man from the cycles of nature – day, night, summer and winter – has created a world of neutral, flat light that has no effect on our emotions. This is why Spanish designer Jordi Ribaudi sought to design an object that would be like the sun, like fire, more imperfect than white light, but richer, with brightness and shadows, vivid, warm, attracting us, becoming like the centre of a fire. Ribaudi and the Barcelona-based producer Noon did not want the aesthetic to interfere with the concept, so the shape of the item is no more than the result of gravity on matter. The point of suspension defines the shape, and if this point is moved, the shape changes. The choice of copper might be considered a tribute to the noble metal used by the ancients to render tribute to the Sun God.

Link: www.noonbarcelona.com

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Jordi RibaudiCasiopea Lamp

light

Baltimore-based designer Charles Constantine has recently designed Charlotte Bin, a new receptacle that gives a visual weight to the refuse a user produces. When empty, the ghostlike vessel seems to float above the ground on its spindly legs. As matter is added to the bin, it appears heavier, and the legs begin to splay out.Bronze was chosen to give the bin value and importance, while the trash added serves as ornamentation. The clear basket makes the user aware of their waste production and seeks to shame them into using less.

Link: www.charles-constantine.com

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Charles ConstantineCharlotte Bin

objects

New York-based Pinch Food Design has recently designed Frame, a special item of furniture for serving food, part of a collection of food furniture for events and catering.Frame is an example of what Pinch refers to as ‘interactions’: stationary or moveable installations that present food in an interactive way. The furniture, made from a structure of wood and bronze, can be used in many different ways, for example with filled pastry bags and savoury sauces hovering over potato chips that spiral around skewers.Pinch Food Design has also created copper structures, called Ice Mortar, that hold large containers made of ice. Cocktails are muddled and chilled inside the ice bowls. Bartenders pull the attached lever forward to serve individual drinks.Hinge is the third piece of the collection. It looks like a large cutting board with neat rows of sushi when it’s first brought out by a waiter. Within seconds, several waiters appear and stretch the board out by its hinges. Hinge is actually made up of several hinged walnut planks with copper containers. Once the sushi is taken by guests, the waiters fold it back up and leave.

Link: www.pinchfooddesign.com

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Pinch Food Design Food Tools

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Stefan Rath Beer Pub 1516

Austrian designer Stefan Rath has developed a new collection of suspension lamps for the Viennese Beer Pub “1516”. The lamps are made using copper, and they are manufactured by historical local brand Lobmeyr. Since the beginning of the 19th century, the glass and metal dynasty Lobmeyr has proved to be one of the most innovative and renowned in Austrian industry. Rather than limiting himself to the role of glass and metal merchant, its founder Josef Lobmeyr, exclusive supplier to the Imperial Court, invested in and developed new designs and manufacturing techniquesThe shade of the 1516 pedant lamp is made from copper, inspired by the typical brewer’s cauldron. To give the fixture an elaborate allure, nickel-plated trimmings were also used alongside a décor made from polished brass. This was envisioned as homage to Art Deco, with the typical cut-out squares.Used in the sheltered atmosphere of a pub, these fixtures illuminate the bar area directly without emanating too much light to the dark surroundings.

Link: www.lobmeyr.at

light

Young, Brooklyn-based designers Fort Standard used sprues – the paths normally used to direct the flow of molten metal in casting – to create the forms for a series of cast bronze table sculptures.Stripping the idea of casting down to a primitive level, there remains a strong connection to the materiality of the wax and a rough look and feel to them due to minimal clean up after the casting.

Link: www.fortstandard.com

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Fort StandardSprue Candelabras

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Dutch designer Lex Pott has created 40 limited edition artworks that explore the beauty and irregularity of metals.Lex works with six rectangular panels of industrially-processed brass, copper, aluminium and steel. He applies various chemical processes to generate oxidisation of the materials and records the formula with typography on the face of each panel. He explains his idea: “When an element like copper is found in nature, it has a green colour. Iron has an orange/brown colour when found inside the earth. Oxidised metal surfaces create colours that provide information about the material. The pallete is a reaction with the base material, so the coloured surfaces have an organic growth of colour and not every colour is possible on every surface. Colouring metals requires accurate recipes. This project shows the results of research into metals and their true colours; a direct relationship between colour, material and information.”As each metal transforms from one shade to the next, it creates a unique, alchemistic colour palette, revealing how nature can create extraordinary results. Link: www.lexpott.nl

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Lex PottTrue Colours Miniatures

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Supported by a delicate frame, this silhouette does not immediately reveal its complex essence. One must turn it around and examine it closely to discover the intricacy of all its details. Medici is a console designed by the young Russian designer Anna Neklesa that, thanks to a round shape and the right proportions, can be placed in the corner or centre of a room. A modern item of furniture, made from sheets of natural copper and with a base of concrete, it is able to contain books, tea or coffee cups and bottles, towels, brushes or perfumes.

Link: www.behance.net/Neklesa

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Anna NeklesaMedici Console

furnishing