Rapid Advances Transform New Materials Into Chic, Green Designs
August 8, 2008 | Levent OZLER
A decade of quantum technological leaps mean today's designers have in their hands a virtually bottomless toy box of new materials and methods.
Take the award-winning installation "Lightshowers" put on by DuPont Corian at this year's International Contemporary Furniture Fair.
Egg-like polished rocks and smooth slabs of Corian were underlit, with nature sounds generated from a hypersonic speaker; when a person crossed the sound wave's path, it essentially "woke" the sound.
Or look at Vetrazzo, a Richmond, Calif., countertop maker that turns a good portion of the state's recyclables - old traffic lights, curbside trash, windows, even dishware factory rejects - into chic countertops.
The technology boom echoes an earlier era: The icons of early 20th-century Modernism -- Breuer, Le Corbusier, van der Rohe, Gray, the Eames and others -- eagerly adapted machine-age materials like tubular steel and molded plywood into furniture that was new, daring and still accessible.
Now advances are not just industrial - they're green.
Eco-friendly paints and adhesives, water-driven machinery, precision lasers, even organic powder coatings for steel are all relatively new technologies borne of the industry's desire to balance style and stewardship.
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