‘endless’ chair by dirk vander kooij on show at DMY berlin 2011 image © designboom

dutch designer dirk vander kooij presented his ‘endless’ chair at DMY berlin 2011, where it won the DMY award alongside yi-cong lu’s ‘living tools’ series and clemence seilles ‘monumenta’. the award acknowledges design accomplishments and concepts in cooperation with the bauhaus archiv / museum für gestaltung.

dirk vander kooij: endless at DMY berlin 2011 - 2 the robot used to draw out the chairs and dirk showing the recycled refrigerator bits used for production images © designboom

dirk’s ‘endless’ chair first started out as his graduation project from the design academy eindhoven, and has now been further developed. ‘endless’ sees the production of furniture via a giant robot. small bits of recycled refrigerators are poured into the top of the robot arm and melted. this liquid material is then extruded from a moving arm which draws the plastic material into an endless line which is layered to form a chair or table. this method of production allows one to emphasize gradients of colors and the structure of the furniture piece, and is complete in approximately three hours.

see designboom’s previous article on dirk’s ‘endless’ chair in its earlier stages of conception.

dirk vander kooij: endless at DMY berlin 2011 - 3 pile of recycled refrigerator bits which are melted and extruded into an endless line to form dirk’s furniture objects image © designboom

‘endless’ will be in a special exhibition at the bauhaus archiv / museum für gestaltung from september 14th to october 10th, 2011.

dirk vander kooij: endless at DMY berlin 2011 - 4 ‘endless’ chair with blue gradient image © designboom

dirk vander kooij: endless at DMY berlin 2011 - 5 profile detail image © designboom

dirk vander kooij: endless at DMY berlin 2011 - 6 detail of the endless line of plastic that forms the chair image © designboom

dirk vander kooij: endless at DMY berlin 2011 - 7 image © designboom

dirk vander kooij: endless at DMY berlin 2011 - 8 dirk vander kooij image © designboom

dirk vander kooij: endless at DMY berlin 2011 - 9 view of the robot drawing the endless line of plastic into layers to build-up the chair form image © designboom

dirk vander kooij: endless at DMY berlin 2011 - 10 image © designboom

dirk vander kooij: endless at DMY berlin 2011 - 11 the finished product image © designboom

dirk vander kooij: endless at DMY berlin 2011 - 12 installation view of the ‘endless’ project at DMY berlin 2011 image © designboom

‘dirk vander kooij endless’ video by esgo klein