Rubber soul: Designer creates furniture cast from rubber

Milan – When working on her graduate project at the Royal Academy of Arts in London, Nynke Koster realised she could use her interest in moulds and casting to take a piece of the iconic building away with her.

On display during Salone del Mobile, her graduate project Coexist features corners of Burlington House, the Palladian home of the RoyalAcademy. Koster cast the pieces using a non-toxic rubber material but rather than using the mould to create replicas of the objects, Koster used the cast itself – the reverse of the actual objects – to create furniture pieces. The use of natural rubber meant that each piece may have looked like delicate material but was actually springy to the touch.

It's a playful take on Haptic Illusion, removing the character of the grand building and recontextualising it as soft, tactile furniture.