puer stool by Anthony from taiwan
designer's own words:
善is a simple but comprehensive word in Chinese. It has
the meanings of kindness, benecence, goodness, etc.
For me, the most beautiful and eternal value in this world
is 善which can be found in every one of us. There is no
dierence between people from various countries and of
dierent colors. I believe 善 is the core value of design.
Design innovation should appeal to the righteousness in
every global citizen, and this collective benecence
manifests itself in the power of design. Design makes the
world better and only people who pursue 善 designs with
"love," "dream," "courage" can sensitively feel this
beautiful world. Design something that can represent my
hometown-Taiwan is my concept in this project. But,
having the idea to apply things that actually has kept
company with Taiwanese people for ages to my 善
design. I don't want to simply use Taiwan's original craft
skills in my design which lots of designers have used to
encourage the Taiwanese people to give appreciation of
the crafts.
At last, I chose tea as my key material which played an
important role in Taiwan's history. By putting deserted tea
leaves into dierent aluminum molds, tea leaves are
compressed into a variety of shapes. I designed a stool
completely made of tea leaves.
.To produce the puer stool, many steps are needed prior to the actual compressing process of the tea. First, I made aluminum molds for the tea compression later. Second, the dry tea leaves is steamed in the Chinese steamer to soften them and make them more tacky. This step allows the tea leaves to stick together and not crumble during the compression. Only tea leaves with right humidity can finally be made into concrete objects.
The third step is to fill the tea into the mold and press it. However, it is hard to measure how much weight to compress on the tea leaves. I experimented many timess in order to make the better shape.
to ensure the tea on the surface will not fall off, I coat clear epoxy resin twice.
the final step is to drill and assemble
final
final