Innriinnri uses volcanic rock from Iceland to create sculptural table

Natural materials sourced from Iceland‘s volcanic landscape were used to make this piece of furniture by Reykjavík studio Innriinnri.

Presented at this year’s DesignMarch, in an exhibition called The Ode To The Rock, the piece is designed to function as a side table, a stool and an art piece.

It is made from a combination of basalt stone, which is a type of volcanic rock made by cooling lava, and silica, a colourless chemical found in the Earth’s crust.

The piece comprises two sculpted slabs of basalt stone. The top slab was sanded to give a smooth finish, while the bottom slab was left unpolished.

Innriinnri submerged the two slabs in Iceland’s Blue Lagoon, a natural geothermal spa, for the duration of the DesignMarch event. This allowed silica to infiltrate the material, resulting in a white glaze on the bottom part of the stone.

“We put the basalt in the silica water to show what natural process occurs,” designers Raphaël Costes and Ylona Supèr told Dezeen. “You can see the silica sticking to the stone, growing on it after a week.”

“In this way, you have a natural object made by nature in nature with only natural Icelandic resources,” they said.

The designers explained that, if left in the liquid for longer, the rock would become completely coated in the white powdery silica.

They plan to use their research to experiment with the use of silica as a glaze for firing ceramics.

“By researching the geology side of things, natural structures in the materials, colours, form, shapes and a lot of sketches and drawings, the purpose was to curate data in order to obtain an aesthetic from nature,” they explained.

The object can be used as a table when the two slabs are stacked on top of one another. But the top can also be lifted off the base and be used as a stool, leaving the bottom part as a three-dimensional art piece.

Dezeen was media partner DesignMarch, which is Iceland’s foremost design week.

This year’s event took place from 15 to 18 March 2018 in Reykjavík. Other projects on show at the festival included homeware made from recycled waste material and burgers made of mealworms and algae.

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