Called Quiet Motion, the project for BMW's electric car division comprises four carousel-like structures with strips of fabric hanging from the edges, linked by wide circular cork platforms that are also revolving.

Visitors can climb inside the curtains of textiles and relax as the world slowly passes round them: "You are invited to take part in it and be part of the movement," explains Erwan Bouroullec.

The Bouroullec brothers believe that as electric engines make cars quieter, the driving experience and the interior design of vehicles should become simplified and more relaxing.

"We tried to interpret what it means to have an electric cars," he continues. "What we propose with this installation is to say that motion, movement, energy in general should probably be quieter, softer and something which is less about speed and aggression."

They combined materials common to car design - bodywork paint and leather - with materials more usually associated with furniture and interiors, like cork and fabrics.

"We are more and more surrounded by materials that look fake," says Bouroullec. "In the furniture industry you use less materials and fewer components. I think car interiors have to come back to materials that are more clear, more simple, and more understood by the people and customers."

The installation will be on show at Facoltà Teologica dell’Italia Settentrionale, Via dei Cavalieri del Santo Sepolcro 3, 20121 Milan from tomorrow.

The Bouroullecs will also present an aluminium sideboard for Italian brand Magis and an update to their Steelwood chair at the Salone Internazionale del Mobile in the city this week. See all our stories about design by Ronan and Erwan Bouroullec.

BMW i is the sustainable sub-brand of BMW - check out their folding electric scooter and two electric concept cars or see all our stories about BMW car design.

See all our stories about Milan 2013 »
See our Milan 2013 map »

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Bouroullec for BMW i appeared first on Dezeen.

Timothy John produced the stool exclusively for Thanks, an online fashion retailer based in New Zealand.

On top of its powder coated steel base is a hand-turned cork seat, which mimics the cork stoppers traditionally used with scientific equipment.

After a limited edition run of 24 black and white stools with cork tops, the Sidekick will go into general production with solid wood tops.

We've featured lots of cork on Dezeen, including a glass jar with a spherical cork stopper and a cork light fitting with a paper lampshade pinned to it.

We've also published glass vases and lamps inspired by a Victorian scientist’s laboratory experiments and a set of blown glass lamps that also resemble beakers and flasks.

See all our stories about cork »
See all our stories about stools »
See all our stories about furniture »

Here's some more information from Thanks:

Thanks is proud to release the Sidekick Stool, designed by Mt. Maunganui-based furniture designer Timothy John for the Thanks retail stores.

The Sidekick is visually light, unimposing and is easily incorporated into any space. It is inspired by the silhouette of a glass science beaker, resembling a 3D line drawing of its form.

As the contents of an old school beaker were contained with a cork stopper, so too the stool top is made of cork. Cork is a natural product that intrigues the senses. It is warm, smooth, velvety to touch and earthy to smell. It is also is impermeable, buoyant, non-allergenic and fire resistant.

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for Thanks appeared first on Dezeen.

The Luno container has a shape similar to the small playing pieces in the board game Ludo, Martin Jakobsen told Dezeen.

Natural materials like glass, wood and marble appear throughout Jakobsen's work. "In this case, cork was definitely what I needed. It is a sufficiently soft material and very good combination together with glass," he said.

The Luno container is now available from Czech design portal Maxi Design.

Jakobsen founded his own studio in 2010 and began designing products for Danish design brand Mojoo in 2011.

We've previously featured a set of coloured glass jars with cork lids as well as some more unusual uses of cork, including a torch with a cork body and a cork light fitting that let users pin on their own paper shades.

See all our stories about cork »
See all our stories about homeware »

Photographs are by Eliska Kyselkova.

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Martin Jakobsen appeared first on Dezeen.

The Serpentine Gallery in London has unveiled plans by Swiss architects Herzog & de Meuron and Chinese artist Ai Weiwei for this summer's Serpentine Gallery Pavilion: they'll conduct an archaeological dig to find traces of past pavilions on the site then line the resulting trenches with cork.

The plan involves excavating down to groundwater level, revealing buried traces of the past eleven annual pavilions and creating a well at the bottom that will also collect rainwater.

A pool of water will also cover the surface of the circular roof, supported just 1.4 metres above the ground by twelve columns that represent pavilions past and present. It will be possible to drain this water down into the well to create an elevated viewing platform or dance floor.

The temporary pavilion will open to the public on 1 June and will remain in Kensington Gardens until 14 October.

The twelfth annual pavilion follows previous structures by architects including Peter Zumthor, Jean Nouvel, SANAA and Frank Gehry. You can see images of them all here, watch our interview with Peter Zumthor at the opening of last year’s pavilion on Dezeen Screen and read even more about the pavilions in our Dezeen Book of Ideas.

See also: more stories about Herzog & de Meuron and more stories about Ai Weiwei.

Here's some more information from the Serpentine Gallery:

Serpentine Gallery reveals plans for Pavilion designed by Herzog & de Meuron and Ai Weiwei

The Serpentine Gallery today released plans for the 2012 Serpentine Gallery Pavilion designed by Herzog & de Meuron and Ai Weiwei. It will be the twelfth commission in the Gallery’s annual series, the world’s first and most ambitious architectural programme of its kind.

The design team responsible for the celebrated Beijing National Stadium, which was built for the 2008 Olympic Games, comes together again in London in 2012 for the Serpentine’s acclaimed annual commission, being presented as part of the London 2012 Festival, the culmination of the Cultural Olympiad. The Pavilion is Herzog & de Meuron and Ai Weiwei’s first collaborative built structure in the UK.

This year’s Pavilion will take visitors beneath the Serpentine’s lawn to explore the hidden history of its previous Pavilions. Eleven columns characterising each past Pavilion and a twelfth column representing the current structure will support a floating platform roof 1.4 metres above ground. The Pavilion’s interior will be clad in cork, a sustainable building material chosen for its unique qualities and to echo the excavated earth. Taking an archaeological approach, the architects have created a design that will inspire visitors to look beneath the surface of the park as well as back in time across the ghosts of the earlier structures.

Julia Peyton-Jones, Director, and Hans Ulrich Obrist, Co-Director, Serpentine Gallery, said: “It is a great honour to be working with Herzog & de Meuron and Ai Weiwei, the design team behind Beijing’s superb Bird’s Nest Stadium. In this exciting year for London we are proud to be creating a connection between the Beijing 2008 and the London 2012 Games. We are enormously grateful for the help of everyone involved, especially Usha and Lakshmi N. Mittal, whose incredible support has made this project possible.”

The Serpentine Gallery Pavilion will operate as a public space and as a venue for Park Nights, the Gallery’s high-profile programme of public talks and events. Connecting to the archaeological focus of the Pavilion design, Park Nights will culminate in October with the Serpentine Gallery Memory Marathon, the latest edition of the annual Serpentine Marathon series conceived by Hans Ulrich Obrist, now in its seventh year. The Marathon series began in 2006 with the 24-hour Serpentine Gallery Interview Marathon; followed by the Experiment Marathon in 2007; the Manifesto Marathon in 2008; the Poetry Marathon in 2009, the Map Marathon in 2010 and the Garden Marathon in 2011.

The 2012 Pavilion has been purchased by Usha and Lakshmi N. Mittal and will enter their private collection after it closes to the public in October 2012.

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Herzog & de Meuron and Ai Weiwei appeared first on Dezeen.

Rhode Island School of Design student Joseph Guerra has designed a flashlight made from CNC-cut cork.

The simple cuboid form is cut away to create space for the handle, which also encircles the on-off switch.

The torch splits into two halves to reveal the electronics, which fit neatly into CNC-milled cavities.

The use of standard electronic components and computer controlled cutting processes make the torch straightforward to manufacture.

We recently rounded up all of our stories about things made from cork, including a set of pins that transform corks from wine bottles into animal characters and a light fitting that users can pin their own paper shade onto. See all of the stories here.

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