Philippe Bestenheider Nanook Collection

The Nanook collection is composed of a chair, an armchair and a low table. It reflects a study of the passage from two to three dimensions based on observing the tanning of a quadruped's hide.

The chair's upholstery should be seen as a sign, a trace, a memory of the animal, the transfiguration of its skin. This taut skin evokes memories of the animal it once was. The same skin, pleated, gives us the three-dimensionality of a chair or armchair. The structure is a hexagonal network inspired by molecular geometry or a snowflake. The natural form of a skin for the chair's upholstery.

The rigorous geometry of Nature for its structure. Like the Inuit peoples who wear animal skins for protection, Nanook's technical-fabric upholstery has tribal echoes. The pleated, three-dimensional skin is transformed into a contemporary object through the use of digital printing for the upholstery, and moulded synthetic material for the structure.

Nanook seating - whose name derives from the protagonist of the first nature documentary in film history - preserves tribal memories while looking to the future and to technology with the same optimism with which Nanook observed his icy environment.

The armchair has a resin structure upholstered with a printed fabric.

The chair is covered with printed, padded fabric and has metal legs.

The painted steel table can be attached horizontally to a second table or stacked vertically to create a two-shelf arrangement.

Nanook is the result of Philippe Bestenheider's ongoing research into such aspects as fragmentation, molecular structures, the transition from 2-D to 3-D. The first fruit of his research was the Isomera chair, presented at Promosedia in 2006-2007. He later designed the Alice armchair for Galleria Nilufar. Alice is an elaborate, ultra-luxurious armchair made of prestigious materials.

Design:
Philippe Bestenheider

Manufacturer:
Moroso Spa

Bibendum

Designer: Eileen Gray

Supplier: ARAM

Designed in 1929, the Bibendum was named by Eileen Gray after Michelin’s Bibendum Man.

The base is chromed tubular steel, while the fully upholstered seat is available in various fabrics and leathers.

ARAM holds the worldwide head license for Eileen Gray designs, and is the only UK source for the authentic products.

Emile Gallé's glass poetry

murals

http://www.darkroastedblend.com/2011/03/extreme-murals-painted-buildings.html

Incredible cardboard sculptures created by algorithms

Jacob Aron, technology reporter




(Image: Michael Hansmeyer)
The latest 3D printers can build flutes, thumbs and even themselves, but some shapes are still beyond the reach of current technology. For amazingly detailed sculptures like the ones above, you need to turn to more advanced materials - like cardboard.

These are just two of many sculptures created by Michael Hansmeyer, an architect and programmer at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Zurich. To make these, Hansmeyer started with a computer model of a simple Greek column and ran it through a subdivision algorithm which repeatedly splits the surface, creating more detail with each iteration.

The result is a 3D model with between 8 and 16 million faces, but 3D printers can only handle half a million, so Hansmeyer needed an alternative solution to transform his creations from virtual to physical reality. He sliced the column into 2700 pieces and used a laser cutter to create each slice from 1mm-thick cardboard, then reconstructed the column by layering the slices together with a solid wooden core. The whole process only cost $1500 and took about 15 hours, with three laser cutters working in parallel.