In the latest movie in our Bolon at Heart series, Chinese architects Lyndon Neri and Rossana Hu explain how they referenced Swedish landscapes to showcase Bolon's new flooring collection in Stockholm and Milan.
Neri&Hu worked with Bolon to create an installation showcasing the Swedish brand's latest product range, a woven vinyl flooring collection called Elements.
The stand design – which was unveiled earlier this year at Stockholm Design Week and will also be at the Salone del Mobile furniture fair in Milan next week – comprises a series of large suspended tubes wrapped with the new material, which features subtle, warm colours intended to evoke natural materials like stone and wood.
"The stand is composed of a number of what we call trees," Neri explains in the video, which Dezeen filmed for Bolon in Sweden. "There are tubes in five different dimensions wrapped in the new Bolon material."
Hu adds: "It is like encountering an abstract forest."
According to Neri, the design was informed by the landscape surrounding the small town of Ulricehamn in Sweden where the Bolon factory is located.
"If you look at the context which Bolon is in, the idea of landscape is paramount," he says. "So this idea of a landscape being powerful was very important to us. This notion of landscape as a space."
Hu says that they also drew inspiration from the Bolon weaving facility, where huge rolls of Bolon's signature woven vinyl flooring is produced on a series of shaft and jacquard looms.
"When you come here, the one thing you see a lot of is these rolls," she says.
"Nowadays, not many brands actually manufacture the product that they are selling, so I think to embed that manufacturing history, knowhow and expertise into the stand design is really important."
Hu says she thinks it is important for the installation to draw on the story of Bolon in order for it to stand out from other stands at trade shows.
"Because people are seeing and experiencing the brand in the vastness of design fairs, it's really important that for the few moments that they are in the stand that they have a very good grasp of the storytelling," she says.
"So there is a whole variety of experience we are trying to give to the person who comes to the fair."
This movie was produced by Dezeen for Bolon. It was filmed in Ulricehamn and Stockholm, Sweden. It is the ninth video in a 12-part series exploring Bolon's history, design and technology.
Music is by Tobias Lindén of Fry Communications.
All photography used in the story is courtesy of Bolon, unless otherwise stated.