Dezeen Magazine

Close Parity by Maarten Baas

Maarten Baas extrudes his sketches to create Close Parity furniture collection

Naive sketches are transformed into three-dimensional brass furniture in the latest collection from Dutch designer Maarten Baas.

Called Close Parity, the range is made up of five unusually shaped cabinets, including top-heavy pieces that appear to balance precariously on slender legs, and one with a lamp poking up from its surface.

Close Parity by Maarten Baas
Photograph by Erwin Olaf

All fives pieces are made from brass, and some stand on just two legs. But inside are hidden counterweights, giving them far more stability than their unbalanced geometries suggest.

Close Parity by Maarten Baas

"They're all just sketches that have been extruded," explained Baas. "So they are very very two-dimensional actually, but they're all standing on only two legs."

"With a lot of weight in the middle, we could balance it."

Close Parity by Maarten Baas

The Close Parity A-Symmetric Cabinet is a curved chest of drawers resting on four small stumpy legs, which are all arranged closely together on one side.

The Close Parity Bedside Cabinet is the smallest piece in the range, consisting of a single curved compartment, while the tallest is the Close Parity Open Cabinet: a shelving unit resembling a sketch of a lightbulb.

Close Parity by Maarten Baas

"It's a very naive sketch, so naive it couldn't stand gravity actually," Baas told Dezeen. "It only works two-dimensionally on the paper as a doodle, but now we've really made it physical."

"So now there's a difference between naivety of the sketch and the very finely executed pieces," he added.

Close Parity by Maarten Baas

There are also two sideboards in the collection, including the one with an integrated lamp.

Close Parity is one of several projects that Baas is presenting as part of his first major solo exhibition Hide & Seek, which opened last month at the Groninger Museum in the Netherlands and runs until September 2017.

The show also includes his career-defining Smoke furniture, his circus-inspired Baas Is In Town designs, and his recent Carapace furniture based on turtle and beetle shells.

Close Parity by Maarten Baas
Photograph by Jeroen van der Wielen

Dezeen spoke to the designer at a preview for the Groninger exhibition, held in London at the Carpenter's Workshop Gallery.

Photography is by Marielle Leenders unless otherwise stated.