tamawa 'lock' by sylvain willenz

bakelite is back with young belgian producer tamawa, showing at paris 2010 maison et objet. belgian designer sylvain willenz cleverly used a bakelite sphere as a structural tie to pull together three rods of ash, casting them into space to compose a one-minute permanent and functional sculpture. the coat rack expands the use of bakelite into the home, around the ongoing success of tamawa’s accessories and jewellery collection. ‘tamawa’ is japanese for ‘bead on steel ring’.

sylvain willenz with his ‘lock’ coat stand at the tamawa booth image © designboom

sylvain willenz shows how light weight the coat stand is … image © designboom

… and how the three rods are connected image © designboom

‘lock’ coat stand by sylvain willenz

‘nevroz’ spirit level by yann lestrat

french designer yann lester created ‘nevroz’, a spherical spirit level. it is a mobile sculpture set in precarious balance that will not enable one to find the strict line you’re looking for…

‘nevroz’ spirit level

rings in different sizes image © designboom

ball ring

‘tw 25’ watch image © designboom

‘tw 25’ watch

tamawa is a radical style exercise that uses bakelite spheres as a mono material. it is a design story that takes up there where the seminal ‘hang it all’ by charles & ray eames lifted off in the 50s: coloured balls (the official snooker colour line-up) varying from 112mm to 16 cm in diameter.

bakelite is clearly a pure and profound industrial material whose plastic qualities are not confined to billiard tables. this is the framed vocabulary that hubert verstraeten, designer and founder of tamawa, has used to create a range of objects in unlimited conception. after bead jewellery and bodywear, the collection has moved on to accessories and home ware starting with a table lamp by big game.

‘ball’ lamp by big game and ‘ph 25 34’ photo holder image © designboom

‘ph 25 34’ – photo holder

‘ph 25 34’ – photo holder

hubert verstraeten, founder of tamawa image © designboom