Bamboo Forest is the latest project by London base studio Poetic Lab for Salone del Mobile 2014, includes 8 pieces of furniture and lighting conceived by bamboo and glass. This project aims to explore new possibilities with traditional craftsmanship and contemporary production industry.
Bamboo furniture is typically shaped from a very craft perspective where the beauty comes from the skill. We perceive a particular kind of beauty from bamboo in its original from – the bamboo forests, a combination between elegant shapes and gentle movements. We love its somehow random yet pure beauty, almost as if you can hear the wind whispering among them. Thus we decided to use bamboo material with minimum touch, retaining the aesthetic of the raw material itself.
Benefit from its original tube shape, we reinforce the bamboo pole’s physical property by creating a cost-effective process using stainless steel structure and special resin, we also benefit from this process to create a very minimal yet super strong joint with glass. This process not only creates more possibilities for the industrial process, but also prevent bamboo poles from cracking due to different humidity ‒ the main reason why none of the contemporary furniture uses the original bamboo poles.
This special process with heavy research and countless experiments was made possible by the collaboration with Poetic Lab, Yokoyama – the top Bamboo supplier from Japan, and one of the best UK workshop ‒ Windsor Workshop. This collection is a statement that the crafty material like bamboo pole can also be used on contemporary furniture without break it’s original beauty, as we believe the natural already show us the best state of the material.
The Bamboo Forest Collection includes 8 pieces of furniture and lighting – three coffee tables, one rectangular dinning table, one round dinning table, one shelving system and two sets of pendant lights. The combination of bamboo poles and transparent glass create a somehow undefined void space within the pieces, where the objects placed on the table or shelf seemly to be floating inside this void.
