Au Talea
Urban and Public Furniture Design
Au Talea is an urban furniture system consisting of two devices, a vase and a seat, both produced with recycled, chopped and reworked plastics. The project has been created for a workshop at Politecnico di Milano in collaboration with Repubblica del design that involve the Milan peripheral areas of Bovisa, Dergano and Isola. We took inspiration from natural forms, in particular the roots, using traditional methods rarely combined with a contemporary production as plastic recycling. In fact, the latter is heated and melted, then worked manually as it is in the preparation of fresh pasta, obtaining long irregular cylinders, made of a very rough texture, which recall and refer to the archaic architectures in wood, with all the advantages of lightness and durability of plastic. The vase is composed of a bundle of cast plastic stems in the center. It stands like a primitive column, within which plants called Tillandsias. Tillandsias are plants parasites that grow and climb on the trunks of others trees, capable of growing without soil, and to feed the humidity and CO2 in the air. The creation of the seat continues the process of the vase. The stems made of plastic material are pressed at high temperature in the center, forming a plane that constitutes the surface on which to sit, then the dozens of legs are folded to support the seat.