Gravity Stool from Miranda Stet on Vimeo.

Jólan van der Wiel is a young Dutch designer developing furniture whose forms are determined by magnetic reactions.

During his final year at Gerrit Rietveld Academie, van der Wiel built a super-strong “magnet machine” that connected a slab of magnets to a pulley and lever. He placed a bowl of liquid plastic mixed with iron shavings below the magnet block, and slowly released the pulley holding up the block. Jagged mountains of the gelatinous mix pulled upwards towards the magnets, forming the legs of the stools you see in these images. His tests revealed that each iteration produced its own unique, unpredictable load-bearing system of supports.

Gizmodo describes the stools as “ugly,” while van der Wiel explains that they represent a “freakish” combination of technology and natural phenomenon, producing “organic shapes that are so typical of nature itself.” His work, says van der Wiel, is less about gravity and more about the development of new tools and chains of production.

by Kelsey Campbell-Dollaghan

posted in Uncategorized

tagged gravity, holland, Jólan van der Wiel, magnets

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