sF Super Flax
| PROJECT DATA |
|---|
| TYPE |
FURNITURE |
|---|---|
| LOCATION |
MELBOURNE, AUSTRALIA |
| CLIENT | NATIONAL GALLERY OF VICOTRIA |
| DATE | 2024 |
| TEAM | IAIN [MAX] MAXWELL |
| COLLABORATORS | [TOMKINS DESIGN] SAM TOMKINS |
| PHOTOS | NICK BURROWS |
| AWARDS |
COMMISSION
2024 NGV AUSTRALIAN DESIGN FURNITURE AWARD NATIONAL GALLERY OF VICTORIA |
Super Flax
2024 Australian Design Furniture Award, National Gallery of Victoria
sF
A unique, beautiful and culturally valuable object that demonstrates the transformative possibilities of sustainable bio-composite material practices.
Fast objects, like fast fashion, present an immense challenge to a decarbonised product future. SuperFlax demonstrates the aesthetic and functional possibilities of modern bio-composite techniques in concert with renewable material streams and historical making practices. An approach that is as contemporary as it is ancient.
SuperFlax was commissioned for the 2024 Australian Furniture Design Award (AFDA) by the National Gallery of Victoria (NGV) and Stylecraft. This significant design accolade, recognises excellence in Australian furniture design and its contribution to design discourse and culture. Specifically, the award prioritises experimentation into new furniture forms and aesthetics; challenges designers to consider the convergence of traditional and emerging technologies; demonstrate techniques that challenge existing production systems and supply chains; speculate on how furniture might evolve in connection to social, cultural, environmental and technological forces. Via prototyping, our research demonstrates an innovative response to each of these themes.
Fabricated from approximately 3,700 linear metres (two kilograms) of flax yarn knitted, SuperFlax features three textile tubes laminated using a biomass resin over a reusable casting formwork. An innovative forming strategy that makes use of the tensile behaviour of textiles to efficiently create the chair’s distinctive sinusoidal form. The formwork system developed is collapsible and removed entirely through the chair’s small apertures following curing. A novel keyhole approach that results in a final artefact that offers few clues as to how it is made. Consisting of almost 75,000 stitches, the chair was knitted over 18 hours using a bespoke machine designed and built (i.e. 3D printed) by the design team specifically for this commission. Although commercially available knitting machines exist, they are expensive, complex to use and because they predominantly target garment production, many machines are not able to produce the gauge (i.e. thickness) of fibre employed here. While we have focused on flax fibres due to their known use in tapestry and weaving, we believe that many indigenous herb and grass species (i.e. Lomandra, Spinifex, etc...) found across Australia could prove fit-for-purpose. This statement is supported by the extensive manipulation of such fibres for a diverse range of purposes by First Australians for millennia.
SuperFlax represents an ethical, non-toxic, environmentally light-footed and formally spectacular design outcome that evidences significant material and fabrication innovations. It challenges the status quo of existing material and production paradigms by offering a zero petrochemical approach that offers new aesthetic and formal possibilities.
SuperFlax is an interdisciplinary collaboration between supermanoeuvre (architecture and technology) and Tomkins Design (industrial design).
SuperFlax was commissioned for the 2024 Australian Furniture Design Award (AFDA) by the National Gallery of Victoria (NGV) and Stylecraft. This significant design accolade, recognises excellence in Australian furniture design and its contribution to design discourse and culture. Specifically, the award prioritises experimentation into new furniture forms and aesthetics; challenges designers to consider the convergence of traditional and emerging technologies; demonstrate techniques that challenge existing production systems and supply chains; speculate on how furniture might evolve in connection to social, cultural, environmental and technological forces. Via prototyping, our research demonstrates an innovative response to each of these themes.
Fabricated from approximately 3,700 linear metres (two kilograms) of flax yarn knitted, SuperFlax features three textile tubes laminated using a biomass resin over a reusable casting formwork. An innovative forming strategy that makes use of the tensile behaviour of textiles to efficiently create the chair’s distinctive sinusoidal form. The formwork system developed is collapsible and removed entirely through the chair’s small apertures following curing. A novel keyhole approach that results in a final artefact that offers few clues as to how it is made. Consisting of almost 75,000 stitches, the chair was knitted over 18 hours using a bespoke machine designed and built (i.e. 3D printed) by the design team specifically for this commission. Although commercially available knitting machines exist, they are expensive, complex to use and because they predominantly target garment production, many machines are not able to produce the gauge (i.e. thickness) of fibre employed here. While we have focused on flax fibres due to their known use in tapestry and weaving, we believe that many indigenous herb and grass species (i.e. Lomandra, Spinifex, etc...) found across Australia could prove fit-for-purpose. This statement is supported by the extensive manipulation of such fibres for a diverse range of purposes by First Australians for millennia.
SuperFlax represents an ethical, non-toxic, environmentally light-footed and formally spectacular design outcome that evidences significant material and fabrication innovations. It challenges the status quo of existing material and production paradigms by offering a zero petrochemical approach that offers new aesthetic and formal possibilities.
SuperFlax is an interdisciplinary collaboration between supermanoeuvre (architecture and technology) and Tomkins Design (industrial design).
SuperFlax Bio-knitted Chair
The object’s character is the result of the lamination (biomass resin) of three flax textile tubes knitted using a bespoke knitting machine developed for the commission.
The object’s character is the result of the lamination (biomass resin) of three flax textile tubes knitted using a bespoke knitting machine developed for the commission.
SuperFlax
Interior detail demonstrating the complete removal of the keyhole formwork system. As a result, few clues remain as to how the chair was made.
Interior detail demonstrating the complete removal of the keyhole formwork system. As a result, few clues remain as to how the chair was made.
SuperFlax
Top view of bio-knitted chair
Top view of bio-knitted chair
Keyhole formwork system
Reusable and collapsable formwork system that utilises the tensile behaviour of textiles to efficiently form the chair.
Reusable and collapsable formwork system that utilises the tensile behaviour of textiles to efficiently form the chair.
Detail
Rolled end detail simultaneously serves visual, structural, construction (tensioning), and comfort demands and desires.
Rolled end detail simultaneously serves visual, structural, construction (tensioning), and comfort demands and desires.
Bespoke knitting machine
650mm diametre knitting machine designed and built for the commission by the design team.
650mm diametre knitting machine designed and built for the commission by the design team.
Bespoke knitting machine
The custom knitting machine is built from a combination of 3d-printed (PLA) and standard parts.
[left]
Knitting machine parts
Layout of 60% of the 3D printed (PLA) parts developed for the bespoke knitting machine.
[right]
The custom knitting machine is built from a combination of 3d-printed (PLA) and standard parts.
[left]
Knitting machine parts
Layout of 60% of the 3D printed (PLA) parts developed for the bespoke knitting machine.
[right]
Packaging
Distinctive packaging and branding developed for freighting the chair to various national exhibitions
Distinctive packaging and branding developed for freighting the chair to various national exhibitions
Portrait
Super Flax with its makers.
Super Flax with its makers.
Eora / Sydney —
Gadi Country
1503D/780 Bourke St, Redfern, NSW, 2016
sydney@supermanoeuvre.com
Gadi Country
1503D/780 Bourke St, Redfern, NSW, 2016
sydney@supermanoeuvre.com
Ngambri / Canberra —
Ngunnawal Country
canberra@supermanoeuvre.com
Ngunnawal Country
canberra@supermanoeuvre.com
