From laser-cut steel to melted polystyrene waste, 10 designers have reinterpreted the humble hanging basket for a London Design Festival exhibition curated by design gallery Slancha.
Dangling chains and elaborate 3D-printed cups also feature among the 10 hanging baskets displayed in the Hackney studio of fashion agency and retailer Awaykin.
The brief set by Slancha founders Harvey Everson and Findlay MacDonald was to reconsider the hanging basket – a suspended planter typically used for growing flowers – as a collectable design object.
"We invited 10 contemporary designers to work from the same loose framework of bracket, suspension and vessel, interpreting it through their own materials and practices," MacDonald told Dezeen.
"We selected designers that work across a range of materials, so we knew that the outcomes would all be completely different," he continued.
"It means we have all ends of the spectrum in the show, from really beautiful, small, refined pieces, to larger, more grotesque ones that are somehow beautiful and ugly at the same time."
Among the more abnormal pieces is Pyrofoam Planter by French designer Nicolas Zanoni, a wall-hung basket made by melting industrial polystyrene waste so that it takes on an organic, caramelised form.
Another is Tri-diatreta by London-based Coline Le Quenven, a steel armature that supports three 3D-printed cups, combining references that include Roman cage cups and the neo-Greek bronze furniture of France's Villa Kérylos.
"It's so close to what a traditional hanging basket bracket would be like, but then there's the use of 3D printing, which creates these incredible patterns on the outside," said MacDonald.
Romain Basile Petrot was one of three designers to put a twist on a single suspended basket, using stacked plates of aluminium engraved with the lyrics of David Bowie's Space Oddity.
Marc Sweeney paired a recycled champagne bucket from his Pylon series with a fine stainless-steel ball chain, while Martha McGuinn of Jamps Studio used laser cutting to recreate forms found in medieval manuscripts and gothic architecture.
Hanna Fastrich pushed the brief the most in her brutalism-inspired design, Red Hot, a cantilevered arrangement of two slab-built ceramic blocks with a deep red glaze and a small conical dish for flowers.
"The texture is incredible; it almost looks like the bark of a tree," suggested MacDonald.
The smallest works come from Six Dots Design and ThisIsByron, who both created tubular aluminium forms, while Sheyang Li created a larger but more delicate piece featuring an ash wood hook, a stone support, an aluminium tube and a suspended ceramic vase.
Completing the series is a design by London studio All Ears. It features four vases held inside a striped wooden block, made from alternating layers of maple and walnut, while chains hang down like stems.
The baskets were styled with floral arrangements by Glasgow-based Studio Kumari, featuring dark purple lilies, thistles and yellow tomatoes.
Slancha was recently named on Dezeen as one of five galleries injecting renewed energy into the London design scene.
This show comes a year after the Scottish duo presented the LDF exhibition, The Car Boot Sale, which established their reputation.
MacDonald said the duo felt the best way to follow up the success was to do something completely different this year. In addition to Hanging Baskets, the pair have also created an exhibition and a curated pop-up shop at The Hoxton hotel.
"We were quite nervous to come back this year, because we knew everything was going to be a comparison to last year," he said. "We wanted something incomparable to last year, but equally fun in its narrative."
The photography is courtesy of Slancha.
Hanging Baskets is on show at Awaykin from 14 to 20 September as part of London Design Festival. See Dezeen Events Guide for more architecture and design events around the world.