Lounge Landscape Achim Menges
The Lounge Landscape is a curved seating surface that is made from non-elastic textile’s capacity to differentially stretch and contract through geometric deformation, bringing together lightness and the necessary strength.
The project was instigated by the universities’ commission to design and manufacture a series of furniture in a celebration of the 175th anniversary, in collaboration with the relevant manufacturing industry the project commenced with the development of a novel composite material system consisting of a 3D spacer textile sandwiched in a stressed glass fibre skin. After a series of digital and physical modeling the seating could be made, or calculated, from a single master mold with creative machining (check out that marker doing the job!). The necessary mathematics and ergonomics were not focusing on finding an optimal sitting position but rather to offer users the freedom to change positions and sit or lie down as they please.
Courtesy of Achim Menges and his team
“More importantly, this integral approach to form, material, structure and manufacturing also provides an inroad for rethinking surface articulation as a means of differentiating possible body-surface interaction. Each Lounge Landscape furniture piece provides for a multitude of anticipated as well as divergent activities by up to 7 people at a time. The open-endedness of possible uses and loose-fit ergonomics, and the concurrent erosion of clearly demarcated functional zones of more conventional seating furniture, demands a conscious (re)positioning of the user within the landscape-like articulation and its micro social context prompting an intensified individual and collective experience.” Prof. A. Menges
The Lounge Landscape is designed by product design students Nicola Burggraf, Susanne Hoffmann, Steffen Reichert, Nico Reinhardt and Yanbo Xu, guided by Professor Achim Menges. We caught them lounging at the MATERIALICA Design Show last month receiving their first design award, and probably not their last!
Courtesy of Achim Menges and his team
Credits:
Department of Form Generation and Materialisation, HFG Offenbach
Project Coordination: Prof. Achim Menges
Project Team: Nicola Burggraf, Susanne Hoffmann, Steffen Reichert, Nico Reinhardt, Yanbo Xu
Courtesy of Achim Menges and his team
