March 15, 2014

Marjan van Aubel’s table harvests electricity for mobile devices

Filed under: Design,Gadgets by Branko Collin @ 1:52 pm

current-table-marjan-van-aubel-1

Why not make your table top a solar cell? Add in a couple of USB ports and you’ve got a cell phone charger that you could eat off. And that is exactly what London-based Dutch designer Marjan van Aubel did.

Writes Dezeen:

Inside the glass panels is a dye-synthesised solar cell that uses the properties of colour to create an electrical current, in a similar way to how plants use green chlorophyll to convert sunlight into energy. […] Charging times vary depending on the amount of sunlight present. “One cell needs about eight hours to fully charge a battery, and there are four cells for each USB port,” the designer said.

This reminds me of the bookcase with a memory by Ianus Keller and the table shaped case-mod by Marlies Romberg (story here).

current-table-marjan-van-aubel-2

(Link: Bright; photos: Marjan van Aubel)

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March 10, 2013

Table with rubber legs by Wout Wessemius

Filed under: Design by Branko Collin @ 12:27 pm

Wout Wessemius likes to use rubber in structures. His website showcases tables, chairs, sofas and even a log cabin made of rubber, or least covered with the stuff.

This table, called the Chapli, has two twisted rubber legs with a frame of steel and a wooden top. It is also available as a smaller model with a round top and one leg. Pricing seems to be unavailable, dimensions can be altered on demand.

According to House of Design, Wessemius sources a lot of his materials at the junk yard.

(Link: Trendhunter. Photo: Wout Wessemius)

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September 22, 2008

Dinner table with built-in marble track

Filed under: Design by Branko Collin @ 12:53 pm

Marbelous is the name of this table with a built-in marble track. Designer Tineke Beunders of the Ontwerpduo studio created it earlier this year. Beunders bases her works on vague childhood memories. I wonder if she mixed up the marble track — which was fun because you got to make it yourself — with the cutting board that had a gravy groove.

Photos: Ontwerpduo. Via Bookofjoe.

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March 20, 2008

Sawn up furniture by Ward van Gemert on Marktplaats

Filed under: Art,Design by Branko Collin @ 2:23 pm

[photo of a sawn up chair, parts freely separated]

Rotterdam-based artist Ward van Gemert takes furniture from Marktplaats (the Dutch eBay subsidiary), saws it up into interesting compositions and sells the resulting art pieces back at Marktplaats as a set of parts. The unusable chair shown here – hanging from invisible strings – was made for Van Gemert’s final art school exam.

These days, Van Gemert creates actual, usable furniture, but still according to the same principle of redesigning the familiar. The “stretch” table below was sawn up, then reconstructed into an actual table using see-through casting resin. His art/design may look familiar if you have seen the work of Paul Verode, the man who sawed up Ferraris, whom Van Gemert once studied under.

[photo of a functional sawn up table]

Via Bright.

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