Art student Hongtao Zhou from the University of Wisconsin-Madison has constructed furniture made from ice and snow on the frozen surface of Lake Mendota, Wisconsin, USA.
Zhou has created snow bowls (above) and a table and chairs (below).
Here's some more information from the designer:
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Ice & Snow Furniture Raised From Lake Mendota, Feb, 2009
by Hongtao Zhou, Sustainable Artist/Designer, UW-Madison
Hongtao Zhou, a University of Wisconsin-Madison art student, is creating the icy furniture on frozen Lake Mendota near the UW-Madison Memorial Union Terrace shoreline. Visitors stop to take photos, eating ice cream from snow bowls and try the cold ice chairs. The icy furniture makes the winter terrace shoreline a place to enjoy winter fun.
The furniture is raised by an artist following the nature and using local climate and natural resources to please people in winter. They connect the lake, the land, the air and the people and complete a sustainable life cycle with minimum environmental impact. Environmental artist wants climate furniture to raise awareness that we can make a sustainable world with less or without a negative impact.
Following the weather change, the furniture will melt into the lake and become a part of the water body again and complete the beautiful green life cycle.
breathtaking!
well, I don’t know what to think about it..
Is it really? http://www.icehotel.com
As far as ice design goes, I have to say this is pretty rudimentary.
pointless. my mind boggles at how this made it on here
this is quite beautiful. im from around here…i have to say to the naysayers, you gotta see it to believe it.
bravo!
http://www.irish-architecture.com/tesserae/000011.html
1. taking large steps backward on dezeen…
2. how about sponsoring projects to elevate content DEZEEN?
3. I’ll happily be your first…
come on!
and then?
It’s a shame the furniture have these iconic shapes, he could have think of other shapes, taking advantage of the material.
nice landsacpe for the spot
the icle is very natural but the furniture is really too thin to make
In fact, the icehotels are huge projects, cost too much energy and space. Ice is very heavy stuff. This is a simply and flexible project.
Perhaps if we knew the construction process it would lend better insight into the concept?