Basel 2008: Resilience by Julia Lohmann

No animals were harmed in the making of German-born, London-based, bovine-loving designer Julia Lohmann’s console and coffee tables for this week’s Design Miami/Basel fair. One of four Designers of the Future (along with Max Lamb, Kram/ Weisshaar, and Martino Gamper), Lohmann’s response to a broad brief to use wool and concrete was more considered and finely executed than the others (although Gamper’s wool, it must be noted, was lost in either Swiss, German, or French customs). Whereas none of the other designers chose to combine the materials, the fulcrum of Lohmann’s work was their opposition, as indicated by the project’s title: Resilience. In an effort to show the flexibility of the wool and brittleness of the concrete, the designer created a series of arced tables, bathing sheets of felt in concrete and bending the edges downward before letting the amalgam dry. The raw concrete reveals its weakness in a plethora of pretty cracks while the felt, invisible within, provides a foundation for the form. www.julialohmann.co.uk