Re-Connect
Re-connect, as seating island.
When the WNWI designers arrive at Bloomberg’s Canning Street warehouse, they are like magpies, sifting among the waste for glittering or precious items.
Laetitia de Allegri and Matteo Fogale were struck by the hidden beauty inside data cables, stripping them right back to find shimmering twists of aluminium foil around the wires. They were struck by the thought that by repurposing the data cables, in this case weaving it using traditional caning techniques and embedding it in resin table surfaces, they were echoing its original function of both communi- cating and simultaneously protecting data. They have used the cables to join together parts of solid ash wood to create protective screens and chair backs, as well as casting long lines of cable through a coloured resin top to physically connect people sitting at opposite sides of the table. The ash was hand bent by a London-based carpenter and the resin top was also cast nearby.
De Allegri and Fogale have also incorporated wood from broken pallets, planing it down and using the technique of marquetry to create decorative patterns. The pale colour of the wood counterbalances the metallic, technological feel of the silver foil. They explain, ‘Using the materials without too much manipulation and placing them out of context gives them a new life. We wanted to create pieces that celebrate craftsmanship, materials, details, textures and to celebrate the unseen’.
Re-connect; A seating island.
Comes from the idea we are using data cables once used to connect computers/data/people now re-propused into a seating island made out of different parts connected to each other, with the function to re-connect people again.
