Nature and technology combined in stunning design at Transnatural

Dec 4, 2011 | by Robert | Art, Event

About the author

Art director, designer and photographer in the virtual world. What's in a name.

Label
You might remember Transnatural from two great exhibitions at Trouw, where crowds of geeks, hipsters and high brow combined were confronted with stunning design and experiments in which nature and technology melt together. They recently launched a new label with the same philosophy, so I took a tour through their new gallery space.

The gallery space is not that big, but it makes up in big design ideas and products. Walking around, I was quite surprised by the quality of the work. I often see design where the concepts seem to be made up after the products are created or where they just make no sense. With the Transnatural label it all seems to fit perfectly within their theme and philosophy. An inspiring and creative design galore.

Transience Mirror
Lex Pott & David Derksen treated different parts of a mirror with a certain material to change the state of oxidization of the mirror. A beautiful minimalistic approach. The fun part is the mirror will keep changing over time.

Computational chair
EZCT Architecture & Design Research were interested in achieving a mechanisation of the design process. They created a program that generates a chair design especially for you based on both your height and weight. The program creates a design which minimises its volume while most effectively dealing with the weight of the person sitting on it. This reminded me of the Bone Chair by Joris Laarman which is based on the same concept but totally different aesthetically. See for yourself what you like best. Each chair is unique and comes with a small price tag available on request.

There are a couple more interesting designs to be seen at Transnatural like a lamp made out of leather left-overs, a new kind of lighting and a morphing 3D pattern. You have to check it out for yourself. Have a look at their website for interesting workshops about several themes like how to transfer a robot personality into household appliances.