These designers believe your living room is missing an incense burner that captures smoke in a glass dome, your bar cart needs a set of drinking "vessels" that play visual tricks on the drinker and your bedroom isn't complete without a lamp that evokes wind flowing through fabric.
These are a few of the home goods designed by School of the Art Institute of Chicago's Architecture, Interior Architecture, and Designed Objects (AIADO) department currently on display at the international Milan Design Week. For the past decade, students in the year-long Milan External Partnerships class, taught by professors Helen Maria Nugent and Tim Parsons, have created and produced home goods designs to showcase at the international design exhibition. Previous designs have landed the college a partnership with CB2, among other buyers.
This year the school teamed up with West Supply, a Chicago-based artisanal foundry and fabricator of designer furnishings, lighting and fine art to create "heirloom-quality objects" using glass and bronze that respond to light in unique ways. West Supply's technicians hand-cast and hand-finished the objects.
The collection, titled whatnot x West Supply, will be showcased April 4-9 in Milan and on display in SAIC's LeRoy Neiman Center (37 S Wabash) later this spring.
Take a look at the full whatnot x West Supply collection here. (Product descriptions supplied by the designers)
Edgee by Ting-Yu Tseng: "A table accessory that rests on the edges of any surface, demonstrating the balancing weight of bronze with its wiggle form creating a 2D graphic in 3D space and the illusion of lightness. "
This Moment by Yuling Yu: "This Moment is a glass and bronze luminaire that evokes the image of flowing fabric, inspired by seeing part of a skirt whirl about in the wind and get caught in the door of a taxi."
Split a Second by Stella Shen: "Split a Second is a gradient mirror inspired by the fragility of glass. It visualizes the action of a sphere passing through a sheet of glass. Two objects originally separated come together through this action."
Rest Awhile by Miiko He: "An incense burner that captures smoke in the glass dome to create a visual metaphor of hiding chaos. It invites people to set aside the cares of the world to rest for awhile.
Kylix by Majenta Alcyone Strongheart: "Kylix is a stemless, blown glass drinking vessel that shrouds the drinker’s view when lifted to their lips. Inspired by the eyed-kylix of Ancient Greek symposia, the cup acts as a lens evoking curiosity as the user takes in their newly distorted environment."
Aqua Fluctus by Kaan Tombaz: "An elegant display tray used for serving guests food and drinks in casual or exclusive gatherings, the design is inspired by aqueducts which bring water into cities from distant water sources while mesmerizing us with their construction."
Apparition by Jenny Chen: "A solid glass bowl that captures an impression of the Chinese dining tradition; can be used for serving food, albeit a little bit at a time."
Pause by Irem Mimaroglu: "Pause is a tabletop mirror that is derived by the question what would time look like if it was an object? Inspired by Henry Austin Dobson's quote 'Time goes you say? Ah, no! alas, time stays we go', the mirror aims to stop the stream for a moment and cause a pause."
All work No play by Haeyoon Choi: "A set of cast glass desk accessories inspired by the architectural structure of playscapes. A dynamic range of curves and surfaces evokes interaction."
In Vitro by Celine Setiadi: "Inspired by glass Roman funerary vessels and the practices of Chinese ancestral piety, In Vitro is an urn and incense burner intended to invoke a meditative mourning experience that centralizes the rippling memory of the beloved departed."
Lurch by Bailey Fontaine: "Lurch is a floor lamp that captures the gesture of shaping molten glass."
Rhizome by Angela Huang: "A candelabra branches out from an organic element into a modular system, using its weight and counterbalance to create a visual fluidity. Rhizome is inspired by the pattern of branches forming in an orderly complex nature."
Framework by Amanda Yamasaki: "An interactive table top luminaire that invites the user to modulate space through light and shadow, inspired by the relationship between Laszlo Moholy-Nagy and Mies van der Rohe."
Aziz by Amanda Worrell: "Using algebraic equations to program the lines, angles, and planes that reflect light, this bronze table lamp and reflector inspires one to contemplate the nature of light as it travels through space and time."
Counterbalance by Adam Mansour: "A small side table which relies on the placement, tension, and weight of each individual part to make the object. It is through the harmony of its pieces that the object's function is fulfilled."
