While some of the design companies and creatives presenting their latest works and collections during Milan Design Week mainly focused on technologically advanced materials, Japanese company Nendo opted for a showcase at Superstudio Più "Art Point" (Via Tortona 27; until today) that didn't just look at high-tech materials but also at movement.
The compact exhibition "Forms of Movement" features indeed 10 different collaborations with selected Japanese manufacturers, and introduces a range of interior design objects that transform or mutate their shape and form via movement.
One of the main display is a sort of pool of light on which seven large pearls - the "Seven Sliding Cases" designed for Blanc Bijou - are displayed.
This project consists in a series of boxes made with Fluoropolymer, a molecule produced by compressing and heating granulated natural mineral fluoride.
Being characterized by unique durable qualities such as high wear resistance and antifouling properties, not to mention a low-friction quality, this material is commonly used in the medical industry and in joints for robots.
In this case the material was instead employed to create a high-tech jewel box that is as precious and collectable as the piece it preserves.
All the white cases have the same sphere shape of 65mm in diameter, but slight indentations are located differently on each of them.
These indentation marks serve as a clue as to how the boxes open: each case opens indeed in its unique way (sliding sideways, turning open with weight when held, etc.), revealing the jewelry placed within.
There are other projects in the showcase that look at the possibilities offered by variations in just one object. The "Blooming Shades" for Micro Technology look like ordinary blinds.
Yet a hidden mechanism consisting in two layers of high-quality shading film and a layer of shape memory alloy connected to electricity, offers users the possibility of controlling privacy and varying light intensity in a clever and rather dreamy way.
When connected to electricity, the shape memory alloy develops resistance and generates heat, pushing out the film and releasing the shape of a flower embedded in the blinds.
Depending on the sensor and settings chosen, various combinations can be applied for the movement of the flowers. For example when the sunlight gets stronger or the temperature inside a room rises, the flower automatically opens to block the bright light and maintain a pleasant room temperature.
There is more or less the same principle behind the "Four-Layer Vase" for Wakazono: this piece features two different overlapping patterns created using fine milling technology and carved in constant intervals on the vase's exterior, resulting in two different levels on the surface.
This process produced a four-layer surface with different depths, but the patterns appear visually when you move around it, or when the light hits the vase at a particular angle. So in this case the process of transformation is not triggered by a mechanism, but it depends from the depths of the surface-embedded grooves (according to the designers, it was a painstakingly long and slow process testing the depths to achieve perfect grooves to get these effects).
The most interesting point about the designs included in this project by Nendo is not just the research behind the materials employed to make them, but the inspiration behind them, that is movement.
The boxes, the blinds or the vase are indeed almost an excuse to design new types of movements and movement ends up becoming a design opportunity for the researchers and creative minds at Nendo. Fashion designers take note as this could be a good inspiration for a collection or for a collaboration with an innovative studio like Nendo (they are already well-known for their experiments with YKK zippers, so they do have some experience when it comes to experimenting with fashion-related products).
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