New York 2015: referencing geology and the passage of time, Italian design group Nucleo's resin furniture for the Ammann Gallery was shown at New York's Collective Design Fair (+ slideshow).
Based in Turin, Nucleo is a collective of artists comprising Piergiorgio Robino, Stefania Fersini, Alice Carlotta Occleppo and Alexandra Denton.
Their furniture juxtaposes rough and polished materials, intended to mix the natural and the artificial.
Built up over several months, many of the resin pieces created for the Ammann Gallery are broken apart and recast, or layered with different coloured pigments. The effects create aesthetic qualities similar to semi-precious stones.
"Every piece is a process," gallery owner Gabrielle Ammann told Dezeen. "They work and experiment until they get the quality that they want."
For example, the limited-edition Amethyst AP20 stool is coloured to look like a geode – a rock containing crystal structures inside. It is Nucleo's first piece designed for both indoors and outdoors.
The metallic sheen of the Nickel Fossil Stool is enriched by the textures created by imperfections formed during the casting process. Nucleo sees these impurities as a form of embellishment.
Quartz is a variation on the Amethyst stool, with wood embedded inside and layers of white pigment to create the marbled texture.
The Resin Fossil Console, a one-off piece, uses translucent resin to create its frosted, ghostly presence. "The piece picks up the light of whatever room it's in, so it plays with the environment," Ammann said.
For the Souvenir of the Last Century Stool, a clear epoxy-resin form encases an antique wooden stool. The casting process created bubbles and colours within the resin.
"They buy and preserve old pieces of furniture from around the world and make them the inner life of the new pieces," said Ammann. "The casting process and how it reacts with the old objects is always unpredictable."
The Wood Fossil Table has antique wooden legs and a polished resin top. It's the most minimal piece in the collection. "All the pieces are usable if you want them to be," Ammann added.
Ammann Gallery also represents photographer Hélène Binet, whose images of Peter Zumthor's Steilneset Memorial in Norway were displayed alongside the furniture at Collective Design Fair.
The event took place at Skylight Clarkson Sq from 13 to 17 May during NYCxDesign – New York's annual design festival.