Belgian design studio Muller van Severen has crafted curving loungers from wire netting as part of a furniture commission for one of the Solo Houses – a series of architect-designed dream homes in Spain (+ slideshow).
The designers worked with a stainless steel netting of two by two centimetre squares to create the daybeds, which they describe as looking "like a curled up mattress or a sheet of paper, waiting for someone to lie down".
Muller van Severen created the furniture for a circular house by Belgian studio Office Kersten Geers David Van Severen (KGDVS), which will be completed later this year as one of a collection of dream homes badged the Solo Houses. Each of the houses is designed by a different architect.
Situated on a 100-hectare site in the hilly, wine-growing region of Matarraña, the natural surroundings of the Office KGDVS house inspired the form and transparency of the furniture.
"It's an incredible place entirely surrounded by nature," said designers Hannes Van Severen and Fien Muller. "We wanted to accentuate the openness of the place".
Muller van Severen created the low-lying loungers for the house's courtyard and swimming pond. Additional versions of the curved stanless-steel lattices are powder coated in white, green or red finishes.
"You can see through the object, but still grasp the architecture," said the designers. "Transparency makes the objects present and absent at the same time."
"They don't impose themselves on you, while they continue to be sculptural."
They said the pieces would be complemented with the addition of blankets, cushions or sheepskins.
Designer Hannes Van Severen's brother David is one of the co-founders of Office KGDVS.
The Office KGDVS building will be among 12 Solo Houses built in the Matarraña region, two hours' south of Barcelona. Funded by French developer Christian Bourdais, the initiative gives 12 architects free rein to develop any design within a set budget.
The first house to be finished was a symmetrical concrete home by Chilean studio Pezo Von Ellrichshausen in 2013, with Sou Fujimoto's lattice of giant sticks and Johnston Marklee's circular design set to follow.
Muller Van Severen is exhibiting prototypes from the furniture's research phase as installations at Gallery Valerie Traan in Antwerp.
The design duo has been creating a furniture family for the gallery since 2011. Part of this collection, available under the design label valerie_objects, recently went on display inside a luxury apartment in Antwerp, located above the Graanmarkt 13 concept store.