Apart from that...
nice Danish monster. the first one that comes to mind is of course the toilet bowl, but that might not qualify as furniture...Parc Güell in Barcelona of the Catalan architect Antoni Gaudi has countless benches in ceramics, but you might want to have a look at this one. It obviously is a first try and both design wise and technically it still very under-developed, but at least there is a proise of something
http://vercauteren.org/caro/tat.html
Koen...
I set you up for this one. 🙂
The link you sent is exactly one direction I am thinking of.
But there is another...
Your material combination of porcelin and ceramic used in your kitchen items could really make some beautiful chair and ottoman combos with some cushions properly placed.
There! Screw the flood. You must rebuild to a scale that will allow you to begin to make furniture!
I can already hear you screaming in Flemmish, "Let me alone, I've done enough already!!!" and then dashing off a few drawings and grinning, and whispering, "Well, it could be done, I suppose. No. I am retired." And then you like a really good Jewish comedian, you say, "I won't do it! I won't do it! I won't do it! I'll do it." 🙂
Yes, yes, I know, there are issues with fragility and weight in shipping. But wouldn't this be magnificent looking furniture in certain kinds of homes?
Maybe you would have to partner with one of the toilet bowl manufactures, but how cool this would be!
Earthenfurniture.com
This sort of furniture could look awesome in some public buildings, especially earthen ones, too.
I can already see you retained by one of the big architects to design the earthenfurniture for some new building.
Alright, alright, I will sit down and restrain myself.
Can't blame a guy for trying, though.
Dear DC
Nice try!
Apart from your already long list of good reasons not to do it, I have a few of my own, but today a dozen or so good local friends showed up and filled a 30 foot garbage container, six feet high with all the things we have to throw away because the water destroyed them. It was such a pleasure to see them helping us out, that I am ready for any challenge you want to throw at me. Actually, I have been thinking about a ceramic stool for some time. A year ago I even encouraged a student to make one and she (Manon Otto) did a nice project with interesting results. Be assured that I will do one the moment we are back in operation...and it wil not have a large hole in the middle.
You have to admit...
...Dear DC that ceramics is the ideal material to link the outside with the inside. It might be slightly retro to think that a home does not need to be a fortress against all evil that surrounds us,I persist in seeing it as a shelter against adverse climate conditions combined with as much openness as possible to the outside world. Smooth transitions between in and outside are part of that vision. I have never build a house but if I did I would certainly extend inside floors beyond the glass walls or doors and likewise extend terrace floors inside. Ceramic furniture in my mind is part of that. Most other materials either discolour or are slowly affected by rain, snow, ice and sun. If not, it is difficult to make them look comfortable and inviting. So most garden or patio furniture is uncomfortable or light, mobile, foldable etc. in other words, not permanent. I always thought that that was enough of a design brief to start off a nice project. Now let?s hope that I will be around long enough to make them.
Koen...Synchronicity lives.
Wow! Our minds were thinking of exactly the same thing. After my last post on this thread, I began to recall a post I made quite some time back about an influential California home builder and architect named Cliff May. May is often credited as being the father of the California ranch house. The core of May's thinking was exactly that the space outside and inside a ranch house should be part of the house program. Rooms inside should continue outside through glass walls, or sliding glass doors, and should share common floor surfaces inside and out. Rooms, or more accurately areas of use in the house should have inside and outside portions. The patio should not stop at the outer wall. The family room should not stop at the inner wall. It is a magnificient conception of space and one that I have always loved about many of the old ranch houses in California. May said his idea came from a combination of the way the old California Missions were built and the way FLW talked about certain kinds of houses that he built in the southwest. If you look at the link below you will see pictures of some Cliff May houses and, whether or not the architectural execution appeals to you,or not, you will see that he was long ago walking the talk on this idea of connecting space inside and outside the house. You will also notice that ceramic furniture would look vastly superior and more organic to this sort of architectural program than does any metal outdoor furniture, or wood indoor furniture.
Ceramic furniture is the origin of the future!
Screw getting old. There isn't time to worry about it.
Maybe kilns can be built on trucks and towed along with materials and molds and the ceramic furniture can be fired on sight!
I can see ceramic furniture greatly reducing the need to cut down forests. I can see it connecting us with our past and with the earth the same way your kitchen products do.
I can see wonderful new forms for furniture.
I can see furniture that can finally unify the inside and the outside of the house in a way that is an organic part of the foundation.
I see earthfurniture.
The stuff would take the southwestern USA by storm.
http://www.designaddict.com/design_addict/forums/index.cfm/fuseaction/th...
continued...
And given that Jorn Utzon's personal brick house in Denmark proved this sort of house could also be built in northern climates, this stuff could take much of the rest of North America by storm.
It could even help rescusitate the whole idea of designing houses (and other buildings) not to be formal exercises, but rather to be space exercises again. The integration of inside and outside space is so organically and symbolically and spiritually vital.
How can we be integrated as persons on the inside and outside, if our buildings are not integrated on the inside and outside? Our buildings are a reflection of who we are.
But how can our buildings be integrated on the inside and outside with out the common materials and common aesthetics and common function and common value.
Ceramic furnitures seems a missing piece of infrastructure between the outside and the inside.
It blows my mind to think what Renzo might have done with ceramic furniture in several of his structures. At the California Academy in San Francisco, a great white engineered shimmering dream of engineered functionalism, there are all sorts of spaces where he is connecting outside and inside the building and outside and inside structures within the structures. The floors are largely concrete. A white porcelin upper and a gray ceramic lower would have vastly improved the Cal Acad by making it feel vastly more integrated. Concrete furniture is coarse bullshit in comparison. Steel frame furniture also.
I'm jumping down at my key board!
This has to be done!!!
The Head Stool by OMC
I think the head stool by onur mustak cobanli is also pretty cool.
http://www.omcdesign.com/?design=939
Tariki Studio in New...
Tariki Studio in New Hampsire. There website appears to be toast
http://www.flickr.com/photos/tariki/99786506/
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