While working on new projects we’re always searching for new and interesting products. Our latest one, the private home for the Döllerer family next to Salzburg, a restoration and extension of a penthouse with a large terrace and outdoor pool, we started with a totally different approach – we did not want to create the same atmosphere as in their own hotel “Döllerer’s Genusswelten” we completed in mid 2012. On the other hand we didn’t want to break with the alpine surroundings, traditions and materials but to combine them in our designs with some great new finds.
A very special one is Giopato & Coombes from Treviso, Italy:
Cristina Giopato and Christopher Coombs founded their own studio back in 2006 after working for Patricia Urquiola, George Sonder or Sebastian Bergne, just to name a view. A woman and a man, she is Italian and he is English. Their collaboration is based on a continuous dialogue of aesthetic and cultural motives, accompanied by an evolution of functional and productive methods. They don’t want to realize their projects based on compromises but to combine these two foundations above each individual element.
Their new lamp “Bolle” is inspired by the lightness of soap bubbles as a metaphor for the emptiness of light, made from hand blown glass.
“For a few seconds, in front of us, we were surrounded by hundreds of soap bubbles. It was a magical moment with their formal simplicity it was beautiful and immediate: we wanted to crystallize this moment, when the bubbles grow until they touch each other, just before exploding! So this was the beginning. For us the lightness of the soap bubbles has become a metaphor for the immateriality of light.” Cristiana Giopato
Another important creation are their handblown Murano glass LED lamps “I Flauti” inspired by different traditional techniques of Murano glassblowing such as “ballotòn” and “filigrana”. With this lamp Giopato & Coombes combines tradition and technology in search for a new equilibrium between innovation and its context.
“On the way to Murano by boat, docking at the Fondamenta dei Vetrai and beginning to wander from one alleyway to another, in search of the right “soffio”, or breath, that would work for the project that I had in my bag. The colours of the houses, the colours of the sky on the first day of sunshine after so much the rain, the warmth of the people, at first shy, and then very generous; it reminds me of growing up, the memories of ancient and modern glass that have accompanied me since childhood. Then finding the right people, and the exchange of ideas between designer and master glass blower.” Cristiana Giopato
Oh yes, we know exactly what Cristina means. When we were invited at Barovier & Toso to discuss the details for a project in Austria we were overwhelmed by the atmosphere on Murano!
Images: designboom.com, contemporist.com, giopatocoombes.com
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