The Italian design brand Moroso partnered with Swedish design firm Front founded by Anna Lindgren and Sofia Lagerkvist, to conceptualise a range of one-of-a-kind furniture pieces, that are evocative of objects coated with moss, lichen and algae. Front utilised 3D-scanning technologies to craft Design by Nature comprising six wooden seating units. While these are meant to be used as seats, they are designed in such a way, so as to encourage people to climb on top of or lay down on them like “the way one sits in nature.”
Bring Nature Indoors
The purpose of the furniture range is to bring nature inside people’s homes. “We wanted the pieces to create the feeling that someone had lifted a whole glade from a forest with a gigantic shovel and moved it to a home. The pieces try to recreate the feeling of sitting out in a forest on the mossy ground, on a cliff by a lake, or of sinking into a snowdrift. These are all experiences that many can relate to,” states Lagerkvist.
Celebration of Nature
Lagerkvist and Lindgren undertook four years of research and collaborated with experts in numerous fields to craft this distinctive collection of furniture. They drew sketches, and took photos and 3D scans of a number of rocky forests and seaside areas to create the digital designs of the six pieces. The final wooden pieces were covered with digitally woven fabrics produced by Dutch textile company Febrik. Some of the textiles used have grey hues interspersed with green tones to mimic moss-covered stones, while others are woven using a variety of blue yarns to emulate rocks that are found near the ocean.
“We documented areas in the wild using different techniques, both high-tech and traditional. We wanted to collect both the dimensions and physical properties, but also the experience and atmosphere of nature. There were lots of paintings and drawings, and we 3D-scanned entire areas in different natural settings and used those forms to create the pieces of furniture. By using digital weaving techniques, the textiles mimic the texture and details as well as the colours, depth and shadows of the scans,” adds Lindgren.
One With Nature
“Being close to nature is of course a stress reliever and good for your health. But we are also interested in other strong effects of images of the natural world. For instance, there are studies that suggest that people feel good when they see various aspects of nature at the same time. You instinctively understand that there are many ways to survive—you can take fish from the water, you can pick berries and hunt in the forest and fields. This is very basic, a fundamental part of human perception that we are interested in experimenting with,” add Lagerkvist and Lindgren.
Inspired by Natural Surroundings
The series will also include pieces that are inspired from structures and objects made by animals, from single-cell organisms to mammals such as bears and beavers. “Our interest has also been to look at how animal made structures work and how they relate to their surroundings. What materials do animals use, how do they choose a site, what is the intelligence we can see in their design approach?” concludes Lindgren. The Design by Nature collection comprising the six nature pieces and the animal-inspired objects was showcased in a major exhibition in Milan this year.