by Claudia Dias on June 5, 2009
Interestingly enough, whenever there seems to emerge a new high-tech material, it arrives ‘camouflaged’ in a vintage design. I feel this way again with nando’s blown-fabric designs. Discovering “Smash”, a specialized long-fiber non-woven polyester, a light and rip-proof product of Japanese advanced synthetic-fiber technology, can be blown into unique shapes, nando applies this technique to create Japanese-style chochin paper-lanterns. While admiring the outcome of the experiment, I wish for a less retro application, … but maybe that’s what we generally call ‘progress’. To keep it vintage: “One small step for men, one giant step for mankind.”
‘Smash’ … can be manipulated into different forms through hot-press- forming technology. Because it is thermo-plastic, (…) but glows beautifully when light passes through it, we wanted to create lighting fixtures in the style of vernacular Japanese chochin paper lanterns with it. (…) We realized that Smash’s particular properties would allow us to shape it like blown glass into a seamless one-piece lantern. It is impossible to completely control the process, so each fixture takes a unique form as heat is added and pressurized air is blown into it. As in glass-blowing, we can intervene during the production of each piece, resulting in a collection of objects whose infinitely varied imperfections are reminiscent of the infinite formal mutations of viruses and bacteria in response to environmental changes…’
‘The fixtures are weighted at the base by the light source.(..) Smash changes form if the interior temperature rises above 80 degrees centigrade, so we mounted low-heat LED bulbs in machined aluminium sockets that double as a heat-sink to maintain a low interior temperature.”
Text quoted from nendo
nendo created blown-fabric for ‘Tokyo Fiber ’09 Senseware’ presented in April at the Milan 09 Triennial
www.tokyofiber.com
source: www.nendo.jp
by Claudia Dias on May 22, 2009
nendo has been electrifying Japan - and the rest of us - with a surprising number of designs and cross-discipline inventions for the past few years. Currently nendo’s most ‘exposed’ design is this pleated paper chair, which is hand crafted from folded paper rolls, what in Japan is called ‘waste product’.
‘With Cabbage Chair, the roll’s original shape and function is obscured and its inherent material property gives rise to a unique conceptual object. Without processing or assistance, the work elicits an organic simplicity and carries messages of re-invention, human ingenuity, and delicate beauty.’
‘Since the production process is so simple, we thought that eventually, the chair could be shipped as one compact roll for the user to cut open and peel back at home. The chair has no internal structure. It is not finished, and it is assembled without nails or screws’.
The Cabbage Chair was initially shown in the groundbreaking exhibition “XXIst Century Man,” staged and directed by Mr. Miyake at 21_21 Design Site in Tokyo in June 2008. It also entered the permanent collection of MoMA, MAD (Museum of Arts and Design, NY) and other museums.
With Ghost Stories, nendo showed a constellation of forty Cabbage Chairs in a dreamlike interior landscape of his own design earlier this year at Friedman Benda Gallery.
Please refer to the gallery for inquiries and prices.
Friedman Benda Gallery
515 W 26th St, New York, NY 10001, Tel. 212.239.8700
Many thanks to nendo and Jennifer Olshin at Friedman Benda Gallery for photographs and material.
jennifer@friedmanbenda.com
http://www.nendo.jp