nature of material by ran amitai

ran amitai, a recent graduate of the bezalel academy of art and design of jerusalem, israel, developed the ‘nature of material’ project, a series of stackable furniture, as his final thesis at bezalel.

‘in the beginning I worked mainly with paper, making small scale models’ says amitai. ‘whenever I saw potential or a need to check stability I translated the small paper model in to a life size sheet metal model.‘

ran amitai: nature of material

every object is folded from a spread of laser cut aluminum sheet, which then bends to the final form using a bending mold.

ran amitai: nature of material the making of the stool

ran amitai: nature of material

the idea of the project is to combine straight origami like folds with natural folds.

ran amitai: nature of material

ran amitai: nature of material

‘all of the objects are created by planed and exact folds that create side effects of stretching and bending in the material. in other words, I am folding the legs of the objects and the surface above reacts naturally to the folding act’ says amitai.

ran amitai: nature of material a low table

ran amitai: nature of material nature of material stools and chairsran amitai: nature of material paper models

ran amitai: nature of material nature of material stackable stools

ran amitai: nature of material testing the stool

ran amitai: nature of material nature of material stackable chairs ran amitai: nature of material

ran amitai: nature of material

‘this integration between the strict and natural folds creates a steady construction from one hand and soft, organic, upholstery like shape from the other hand’ ran amitai says. ran amitai: nature of material

ran amitai is part of the israeli design group bakery, which will be showing in the upcoming salone satellite 2010, milan, italy