Zaha Hadid Architects & Patrick Shumacher | Z-Scape

in Furniture by editor — 9:10 pm | March 3, 20121 comment

Z-Scape is a compact ensemble of lounging furniture for public and private living rooms. The formal concept is derived from dynamic landscape formations like glaciers and erosions. The different pieces are constituted as fragments determined by the overall mass and its diagonal veins. Along these veins the block splits offering large splinters for further erosive sculpting. Four pieces have emerged so far: stalactite, stalagmite, glacier, and moraine. Others are yet to be unearthed.

Zaha Hadid Architects & Patrick Shumacher | Z-Scape

The pieces thus derived are shaped further- if rather loosely – by typological, functional and ergonomic considerations. But these further determinations remain secondary and precariously dependent on the overriding formal language. Optimized and thus predetermined use-patterns are not being offered in this project. A margin of strangeness and indeterminacy is desired. Stimulation emerges between abstraction and metaphor.

Within 5m by 2.5m, 11 different pieces are melted together into a jigsaw puzzle, which can be opened up and recombined into other configurations. The lounging box chops off a condensed moment in a flow of interwoven soft and hard space. The soft space, moving up from the floor, is re-shaped into comfortable seating elements, while the hard space always has vertical flat surfaces on the top, as well as within its structure, giving rise to tables, desk and bar elements and a range of shelving.

At this stage of the process, four pieces are developed into real scale prototypes. Glacier and Moraine are a pair of sofas in monolith upholstered foam. They are presented with two complementary tables, Stalactite and Stalagmite, which are made of wood.

Architect: Zaha Hadid Architects with Patrick Shumacher

Design Team: Woody Yao, Caroline Voet, Chris Dopheide, Eddie Can
Manufactured by Sawaya and Moroni

Photos: courtesy Sawaya & Moroni