As part of a new study module, a group of talented students from the Royal College of Art's Design Products programme have produced a number of innovative designs using cork.
The initiative is the result of a partnership between the Royal College of Art and Corticeira Amorim. The most recent collaboration with leading international institutions, it forms part of Amorim's ongoing strategy to make cork a featured material in leading design and architectural projects.
Carlos de Jesus, Corticeira Amorim's Head of Marketing & Communication, stresses the importance of this initiative for the development of new applications and new markets for natural cork: "The Royal College of Art offers a highly regarded, internationally-focused design education. This cooperation is an opportunity to bring a competent and promising community of students into contact with cork, giving them the chance to discover the material's properties, capabilities and features."
The Design Products Master programme is structured in thematic units or "Platforms". The unit participating in the new collaboration is Platform 15, which challenged students to directly explore materials by way of process and to design for production. Its focus is on the subtle essence of objects and an understanding of contexts, requiring a strong interest in visual culture and aesthetics, so as to create design of relevance, worth and beauty.
Under the motto "I am 7 billion", students are to be challenged to design a cork-based product or application that is useful, relevant, with refined aesthetics and that can be mass produced and marketed anywhere in the world. As a premise, it highlights the dialectical relationship between the material (cork) and its proposed use.
According to Harry Richardson and Max Lamb, both tutors in the Design Products programme and coordinators of Platform 15: "Amorim's sponsorship has allowed us to undertake a challenging and stimulating period of research to consider the use of a remarkable material for product design. In many ways, cork is a perfect starting place for considering products of the future, having such a wide range of desirable properties that allow for so many imaginative solutions. Excitingly, much of the research produced ideas and products that are not only innovative and well suited to their function but which offer a vision of sustainable production too."
The inclusion of a dedicated module on cork represents the first phase of the project developed in cooperation with the Royal College of Art. Two months after the launch date of the project, the first prototypes have already been presented and they clearly reflect the students' high level of technical and theoretical knowledge and enthusiasm for cork. Having seen the initial results, Carlos de Jesus says that " a distinctive approach of using cork and a number of interesting solutions for industries as varied as automotive, aquaculture, construction and interior design have been proposed."
In parallel with the work being carried out with the Royal College of Art, Corticeira Amorim has been implementing a number of additional
partnerships and initiatives aimed at improving natural cork's profile around the world, including cooperations with the Serpentine Gallery Pavilion by Herzog & de Meuron and Ai Weiwei, as well as with the Domaine de Boisbuchet (France), Middlesex University (UK) and Rhode Island School of Design (USA).
More about the:
Royal College of Art (RCA):
The Royal College of Art is the world's most influential postgraduate university of art and design. Specialising in teaching and research, the RCA offers the degrees of MA, MPhil and PhD across the disciplines of fine art, applied art, design, communications and humanities. There are over 1,200 masters and doctoral students and more than a hundred professionals interacting with them - including scholars, leading art and design practitioners, along with specialists, advisors and distinguished visitors.
www.rca.ac.uk/
Tuttors of the Platform 15 :
Max Lamb
A native of St. Austell, Cornwall, Lamb earned a degree in Three Dimensional Design from Northumbria University in 2003. In the same year he was awarded the Hettich International Design Award and the Peter Walker Award for Innovation in Furniture Design. He was given the 'Designer of the Future' award at 'Design Miami/Basel' 2008!
In 2006, he completed his Masters Degree in Design Products at the Royal College of Art, developing a concise, process driven approach to design. After a year designing for Tom Dixon Studio, he established his own practice.
Harry Richardson
Born in 1975, Harry Richardson runs Committee with his wife Clare Page, who he met whilst studying fine art. Since then they have studied and practiced the crafts of machine knitting and cabinet making respectively, developed a derelict shop space into a studio and ad hoc gallery, before beginning to work within the design industry in 2004. Since then, Committee has come to design products as varied as lighting, rugs, ornaments, furniture, textiles, glassware and wallpaper for companies such as Moooi, Lladro, Cibone, Topshop and Established and Sons. They also maintain a studio practice producing self-initiated and commissioned works born of academic interest, which have been exhibited widely in galleries and institutions around the world.
