REPLICA: The Foamy Furniture

The relatively simple ‘lost foam’ process they developed, creates pieces that are very un-simple in looks and inspiration. Working with both ceramic and aluminium alloy materials, designs are carefully handcrafted out of an ubiquitous foam material; making each of these items an 'original'.  

 

During the lost foam ceramic process, a foam original is entombed in sand and molten alloy is poured onto the foam original which in turn vaporizes, leaving behind a one of a kind terracotta foam metallic REPLICA. In each case an original work is sacrificed and what remains is a REPLICA. 

 

Apart from the original foam crafting, the sand casting process to create REPLICA was completed at Maybrey Reliance, in our Kent based foundry, with the team working closely alongside the designers to ensure their vision for creating natural looking replica’s could be achieved. 

 

For inspiration Studio Furthermore searched in the rocks, clays and mineral ores which resembled some of their material experiments in terracotta and aluminium. “A parallel could be drawn between the material characteristics of rock formations and various studio samples” explained the creative duo Marina Drago-Mrova and Ian Howlett of the London based design practice.  

 

Seeking cues from nature, Studio Furthermore headed far north to the shores of Iceland, a place laded with geological processes observable in constantly shifting landscapes. 

 

“Foamy lava rocks and cooled magma debris decorate an alien landscape of volcanoes, geysers and icebergs. Tephra hued soils rich in minerals lay bare the otherwise obscured processes that create them. This young land, still in its primordial phase, perpetually forms and reforms via it's rock cycles… Silent and inanimate, rocks are themselves a curiosity since they express little but that of the processes to which they owe their formation.” 

 

The REPLICA’s include a free-standing light, table and mirror. The entire range truly reflects the formation inspiration and a process that truly turns the notion of replica ‘on its head’. 

 

Maybrey Reliance has one of the most diverse sand foundries in the UK, producing high grade flake iron and more sophisticated specifications such as silicon and nickel irons, SG, steels, as well as aluminium and bronze.