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Dur­ing Milan Design Week 2010, the Corian design store fea­tured the “Smart-ologic Corian Liv­ing” exhi­bi­tion that was designed by Karim Rashid.

The exhi­bi­tion fea­tured soft organic shapes realised through a mor­phic mate­r­ial to cre­ate a sen­sual liv­ing envi­ron­ment, a space that echoes the dig­i­tal techno-organic world we live in, evok­ing an alter­na­tive way of expe­ri­enc­ing the home environment.

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Pho­tog­ra­phy by Leo Torri
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Descrip­tion of the Smart-ologic Corian Liv­ing project by Karim Rashid:

The “Smart-ologic Corian® Liv­ing” exhi­bi­tion gave me the oppor­tu­nity to develop a mod­u­lar holis­tic house – a house that can be pro­duced with min­i­mal con­cave and con­vex pan­els and sim­ple tool­ing. I have always been inter­ested in this notion of a mod­u­lar house, of effi­cient dwelling that can be erected sim­ply and quickly, that can be inex­pen­sive and demo­c­ra­tic, and cus­tomiz­able with lit­tle cause and great effect. I always believed that archi­tec­ture finally comes down to a sys­tem of com­po­nents, but what we need are indus­trial ele­ments that are more free form and flex­i­ble in their con­fig­u­ra­tion as not to end up in the world of a grid.  My other con­cern was to cre­ate these pan­els with less waste and to have the waste reused.

I wanted cre­ate a really pos­i­tive, inter­est­ing, and artis­tic space for liv­ing that echoes the dig­i­tal tech­nor­ganic world we live in. “Smart-ologic Corian® Liv­ing” also gave me a venue to design inte­rior objects in DuPont™ Corian® advanced sur­face – using also the ver­sions from the 2010 col­lec­tions Eco-Concrete ed Eco-Terrazzo with recy­cled con­tent – and other DuPont mate­ri­als that could be mass pro­duced in a sim­i­lar bio­mor­phic way. With these ele­ments the spaces are fluid and human and can com­mu­ni­cate an organic, soft, plea­sur­able domes­tic environment.

I believe that the design of “Smart-ologic Corian® Liv­ing” is a metaphor for how tech­nol­ogy, hous­ing, fur­nish­ing, and space can work together to evoke an increased sense of expe­ri­ence, affect our psy­che and bring us a bet­ter liv­ing, and also enable us to reduce the envi­ron­men­tal imprint of our daily deci­sions and actions.

Like many exper­i­ments of the mid-century the house uses a sin­gle repeated flat panel. I started with the desire to have a mod­u­lar sys­tem of a sin­gle molded panel of DuPont™ Corian®. The panel in DuPont™ Corian® is dou­ble lay­ered with a panel of DuPont™ Ener­gain®, a new DuPont solu­tion to enhance energy effi­ciency and com­fort in homes. This sys­tem of pan­els could be recon­fig­ured to dif­fer­ent pro­por­tions and forms. This mod­u­lar­ity was also ampli­fied by the diver­sity of the color palette, by the mul­ti­tude of colours of DuPont™ Corian®.

I have also been given the pos­si­bil­ity, first in the world, to cre­ate a design using an exper­i­men­tal ver­sion of DuPont™ Corian® with bio-based ingre­di­ents and recy­cled con­tent and I con­ceived the Eko Bench, a unique out­door seat­ing solu­tion inte­grat­ing a green man­tle of grass planted into one of its undu­lat­ing curves. I also liked to play with the strong mate­ri­al­ity of DuPont™ Zodiaq® quartz sur­face, which was also devel­oped in a ver­sion with bio-based ingre­di­ents, cre­at­ing a large and colour­ful seat­ing area around a col­umn, inspired by the mix­ing of organic ele­ments with organic form.

The soft organic shape pro­duced for this evoca­tive home con­cept cre­ates a womb-like struc­ture that is con­ducive to energy effi­cacy through the sculp­tured form, no cor­ners trap hot or cold air. The house relies on sus­tain­able and smart infra­struc­ture for energy con­sump­tion and pro­duc­tion with water reuse and low impact construction.

With its capa­bil­ity to pro­tect the enve­lope while let­ting it “breathe”, DuPont™ Tyvek® build­ing mem­brane con­tributes to the com­fort of inte­rior envi­ron­ments. The pho­to­voltaic mod­ules of DuPont, inte­grated into the roof, cre­ate environmentally-sustainable energy. All the light­ing is LED for effi­ciency and low energy con­sump­tion and the radi­ant floors are pow­ered by solar gen­er­ated energy.

This con­cept of techno-organic house is the start­ing point for shap­ing a smart domes­tic envi­ron­ment, based on the per­for­mance of a vari­ety of dif­fer­ent mate­ri­als and tech­nolo­gies. Enjoy.

Visit the DuPont Corian web­site – here.

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(Via CONTEMPORIST.)

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Tags: Corian, Design Week 2010, DuPont, LED, organic, shapes, Tyvek

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