Ian Anderson’s Philadelphia-based mostly ceramics studio has developed a assortment of porcelain tableware by deforming classic shapes, with the aim to increase, or at least preserve, the performance of each and every piece .
For every single piece in Aandersson’s most current selection, the two halves have been shifted at an angle from one particular an additional, with added edges extra where gaps would have formed.
The assortment contains a pitcher, of which the prime half seems to have slid to one side – producing it less complicated to grip.
On the mug, the damaging area left by the shifted segment offers an location for the user’s hand to match into the handle.
Anderson quoted a scientific definition of the word “deconstruction” to explain the concept: “To deform a rationally structured area so that the aspects inside that room are forced into new relationships.”
Related story: Benjamin Hubert patterns ceramic containers with raised seams
“The most current collection of work explores the thought of deconstruction and the impact it has on common or utilitarian types,” he explained. “Alternatively of destroying these objects, deconstruction is providing them new meaning as it relates to design and style and performance.”
Other designers exploring the notion of deconstruction to produce new forms incorporate Daniel Weil, who developed a collection of clocks with mechanisms suspended from wires within plywood frames for an exhibition at London’s Layout Museum.
Martino Gamper also deconstructed hundreds of chairs just before reconnecting their constituent parts into new seats for his 100 Chairs in 100 Days undertaking.
Aandersson’s assortment was conceived as an exploration into alternative tableware types, and a demonstration of the thought that perform is not necessarily dependent on “the number of qualities a form shares with its most simple utilitarian versions.”
For this cause performance was at the forefront of the style method all through, but the designer also wished to push end users out of their comfort zones.
“The huge bowl is a great illustration of this, in which the piece is reduce in a way that tends to make half of the bowl look like it is sliding off and taking a piece of the rim with it,” he explained.
“The rim in a serving bowl is not as crucial to the perform of the bowl as the rim of a soup bowl or a coffee cup, for instance, and simply because of that it can be messed with a tiny more and functionality even now maintained.”
Despite the assortment getting broadly described as “minimalistic” given that its conception, the designer refutes that term.
“My intent was to create kinds that existed in opposition to minimalism,” he said. “The Minimalist edition of my pitcher, for illustration, would just be a straight tube and I don’t discover that extremely fascinating.”
The white, grey and terracotta colour palette was selected to emphasise the uncommon varieties and sharp edges in each piece.
Glazing was utilized to the insides only – where it is necessary for performance rather than decoration – giving the pieces a tactile, rough external finish.