Coil

[Image: From OnSite.12, Bed Supperclub, Bangkok (2009) by Sebastien Wierinck].

Sebastien Wierinck’s public furniture projects seem to lend themselves to some interesting misinterpretations. For instance, when I first saw the two projects pictured here I thought not only that they were one project, but that they were the black tentacles of some kind of furniture-laying machine.

[Image: From OnSite.12, Bed Supperclub, Bangkok (2009) by Sebastien Wierinck].

In other words, I thought, a tangle of black tubes suspended from the ceiling would, when needed, come coiling down to take the shape of whatever furniture you desired at the time: a bench, a table, a love seat, perhaps even a rug.
When you no longer need that particular chair, bench, or nightstand anymore, the coils would simply rewind upward into a canopy of tubes (or perhaps even be withdraw themselves into a machine somewhere in the center of the room, like what’s pictured in the first image, above).

[Image: From OnSite.14, Transmediale, Berlin (2009), by Sebastien Wierinck].

After a long day at work, then, you would walk into your house – which has no permanent furniture – and you’d see a shimmering mass of black tubes swaying in a slight evening breeze above your head.
You’d push several buttons, and the system would begin to move, drooping down in long loops and turning back and forth in tight corners and curves, all laying out the forms of temporary furniture – bed, table – as you get ready for a quiet night at home.

[Image: From OnSite.14, Transmediale, Berlin (2009), by Sebastien Wierinck].

Of course, this admittedly somewhat willful misinterpretation of the evidence at hand is not entirely wrong: after all, though Wierinck’s pieces don’t uncoil from the ceilings in ad hoc patterns, forming zones of temporary furniture throughout empty interiors, they are meant to be (literally) flexible, (somewhat) mobile, and easy enough to reprogram for other spaces.
But what a beautiful thought: that you could walk into an empty room, hit a few buttons, and then watch as custom, temporary furniture is 3D-printed into the space all around you.
Like a strange rain coming down from the ceiling, or the materialization of a dream, usable shapes gradually form – and then you sit, book in hand.
On demand, from above.

(Spotted on SpaceInvading).

7 thoughts on “Coil”

  1. Oh, God no!!I'm guessing these things would probably be programmed by the sorts of people who did Vista. Just how long would it be before they crashed and accidently strangled you?

  2. Given that it's flexible drainage pipe it's a shame not to take advantage of it's functional capacity – couldn't the pipes also fill your drink while arranging the furniture?

  3. this reminds me of

    1 kilo block feeds the hole family,2005. by chris fox http://www.chrisfox.com.au/
    or his 28 ptatoes and
    even the bread fruit tree project, based on chris' relationship with governor bligh and the mutiny on the bounty. a modified boat turned into a foating green house with the hope to imperialist subjugation of masses of slaves and imposed botanical taste… all up a miserable failure that has even resurfaced with the recent social disintegration incidents on Pitcairn Is. a modern legacy of technological advancements

  4. Not only this is not a beautiful idea, it is utterly terrifying. Where will your memory grab on to if the space around you is constantly changing? You must know that, when your brain is accessing a specific recollection, it uses the environment around you at that time to make it stronger and to bring it forward. If your brain isn't capable of remembering how your own house looked like at that time, because it kept changing, how will you use your memory? And for those who don't think this is important, just think of the Alzheimer patients…

  5. Spiderman is the first thing that comes to my mind in seeing those arms. If it were home, I'd constantly have dreams of Doc Ock jumping about. Or anacondas swirling around the living room while I try to make dinner.

  6. Great Post!! The interior is really inspiring. Must be great to be in there. Not only how it looks, but the whole concept of transformable furniture is great

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