Existing somewhere between the land art of Robert Smithson and traditional metal manufacturing processes, Copenhagen-based designer Andreas Konradsen has successfully created what is likely the first chair design to be fabricated using a natural body of water.
Konradsen, a recent graduate of the Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts School of Design, created the “Ripe Chair” as an exploration into new ways of approaching sustainable design practices. Rather than creating the steel frame with traditional welding, he submerged the parts deep in the Baltic Sea and let six months of natural corrosion do the job for him naturally.
Unsurprisingly, this slow and patient method of manufacturing is also seeking to address the designer’s discomfort with the rate in which designers and consumers simultaneously create and consume objects in a trend-driven culture.
