Artist: Joris Laarman
A young Dutch designer, Joris Laarman, working together with carmaker Opel has designed a range of furniture based on the way bones grow, generating constructions using the exact same principle as bone growth. This idea was first developed by Claus Mattheck and further developed by Opel in Germany to create elegant lightweight car parts of the same strength as conventional furniture.
The furniture was made in collaboration with the research lab the International Development Centre ‘Adam Opel GmbH’, employing advanced digital tools the carmaker has developed. The form of the pieces were optimized using Opel’s software – which the car-maker uses to refine car parts to increase strength and efficient use of material.
The software mimics the way that growing bones are able to gene
rate additional material where it is needed, but also to remove material where it is superfluous, by making the bone thinner or hollow.
The Bone Chair is made of cast aluminium while the Chaise is cast in clear polyurethane resin, these techniques are studies in shape, strength and different materials. They are now working on a low cost and efficient industrial translation of their concept.