One week workshop with 30 students in China.
Subject: “Design a seat”

La Fondation Leenaards soutient, sous la forme de mécénat, des œuvres à caractère social et de santé publique, scientifique et culturel établies dans les cantons de Vaud et Genève. Elle accorde également des bourses et des prix à des personnes hautement qualifiées dans les domaines scientifiques et culturels.
En plus de ces soutiens substantiels, la Fondation octroie annuellement des bourses et des prix culturels. Les bourses promeuvent le développement de la carrière de divers artistes, alors que les prix reconnaissent le talent d’artistes accomplis qui ont contribué au rayonnement culturel de l’Arc lémanique.

www.leenaards.ch

The ‘Objets en Eternit’ project is characterised by an intense research process and was developed in close collaboration with ‘Eternit’, a long-established Swiss company. This unobtrusive, grey material is known primarily for its use in flower boxes and corrugated roof sheets. As the brand name suggests what marks it out is its durability. Sturdy and weatherproof, fiber-cement board is well suited to outdoor use. Those characteristics were exploited as far back as 1954 by Willy Guhl for his beach chair, the design classic that gave him international recognition. Nicolas LeMoigne has now explored what design possibilities are offered if strips of the pressed mats are shaped around a mould.
Over a protracted process of experimentation the first prototypes were developed, which led to two objects: an ‘ECAL Hocker’ chair and an ‘ECAL Tisch’ side table, where the functions aren’t fixed and both can be used either as a seat or table surface.
The simplicity of the objects and the formal language are effective and carry the tradition of fiber-cement furniture into the present. Success wasn’t long coming. Both objects have gone into mass production at ‘Eternit’, are being commercialised and have been seen at several exhibitions.
Nicolas Le Moigne started designing objects that brought him his first taste of success during his studies at ECAL, such as his colourful ‘Verso Diverso’ pouring device that can be screwed onto PET bottles to make pouring or watering flowers easier. The design object produced for the Italian company ‘Viceversa’ has been sold more than 250,000 times already.

www.swissdesignawards.ch

Developed as a master’s degree project at the Cantonal College of Art, «objets en eternit» was realised in close partnership with the Eternit company. Intended for outdoor use, these small-scale furnishings and objects – a stool, a side table and flower pots – make consistent use of the structural and design properties of the material. A major emphasis of the project was on the development of suitable forms that would enable the objects to be serially produced. Numerous experiments with different materials and techniques finally resulted in the creation of the first prototypes.

www.designpreis.ch

Competition organized by Designboom.
Theme: RE-think / RE-cycle