Eindhoven-based designer Lucas Muñoz has combined industrial steel ventilation pipes with a copper seat taken from a scrap yard to create this bulbous chair.
Muñoz designed his Tubular chair as an exploration of the structural potential of different industrial components. He wanted to showcase their ability to perform a function within a domestic environment.
Muñoz constructed the seat from galvanised steel ventilation pipes and elbow connectors found in his atelier, as well as sheets of copper taken from a metal junkyard.
"The materiality and shape – the practical means – of the industrial components allow them to afford a variety of roles if arranged in a way that offers some kind of furniture function for a domestic context," the designer told Dezeen.
The chair was displayed at the first edition of 21st-century design fair Collectible, as part of an exhibition called Hardcore, which also previously took place at Dutch Design Week in Eindhoven.
This exhibition was divided into several topics – Muñoz's chair came under the topic of Hyper Ordinary, which featured objects that took a deeper look into our commonplace assumptions about particular materials, components or objects.
"In this case, ordinary ventilation pipes and elbow connectors are arranged in a way that brings them into a field to which they were not designed to belong," Muñoz told Dezeen.
Muñoz told Dezeen that Tubular was a result of a "very physical" trial and error process, with a very limited use of plans or drawings.
The copper plate was curved by hand to mould to the shape of the pipes, and standard aluminium rivets were used to connect each of the pieces together.
"I find a great richness in all these engineered standard components. Not only visually but also functionally," Muñoz told Dezeen.
"Great designers and engineers are behind all these industrial components, and they work hard in making their production and durability as efficient as possible. I find the potential for other functions in these materials."
Tubular is just one example of this attitude: Muñoz's OFIS (objects from interstitial space) collection also includes lighting pieces made from materials meant for behind and in between our walls that have been reappropriated for a domestic setting.
Also at the Collectible design fair, which took place from 8 to 11 March 2018, were a series of InHale coffee tables by Belgian designer Ben Storms, which saw him position huge blocks of marble on top of inflated metal "pillows".