Last week we visited a Belgian factory that make moulded rubber goods, things like motor parts, tubes, washers, bumper parts... Here's 30 kg's of raw rubber, straight from Vietnam. This stuff will be mixed with a few other ingredients, then moulded and vulcanized in a heat press. We brought back a few samples with us to the studio... Now thinking of products we could design.
Sylvain Willenz
Born in Brussels in 1978, Sylvain Willenz has lived consecutively in the US, Belgium and in the UK. Sylvain studied MA Design Products at the Royal College of Art in London, graduating in 2003. In 2004, Sylvain opened his industrial design practice, based in Brussels. With an approach to design characterized by a clear inquisitiveness for materials and processes, Sylvain Willenz and his team, work on various projects ranging from lighting to products, IT electronics and furniture.
Sylvain Willenz works internationally with clients such as Established & Sons (UK), Freecom (NL/DE), Feld (BE), SCP (UK), Karimoku (JP) amongst others.
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06/03/2011
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30/01/2011
Best wishes for 2011 I wanted to make a xMas card.... never figured out what to do.... couldn't find an idea.... same for new Year's.... I tried out several images and photos... Until I took down the xMas tree and all the needles fell to the floor and I was left with a huge green carpet. I decided this would be the stuff to make my New Year Card from! All the best everyone!
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21/11/2010
For the past few months I have been working on a new product for a lovely german company. I have just got back from presenting the first prototype of the chair, meeting the craftsmen and the other designers involved in the project.
Here is a photo of the prototype in the van on the way to the company... there is still a lot of work to do, especially from the craftsmen now. They are wondering how the chair will ever hold together, because it uses a rather unconventional technique. At the moment it is very fragile, but if we all work out the system, it should give us an extremely light-weight chair, possibly less then a kilo. The chair will be unveiled during the Milan furniture fair in April. I'll keep you posted.
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28/10/2010
Hi everyone. Glad to join. For my first post I thought I would share with you a few snaps of my studio's 'little museum' as I call it. I love collecting interesting material samples and objects and working out how they have been made or manufactured industrially. I collect these bits of inspiration whilst traveling. One of my favorite and latest finding is a small plastic flower pot found in an old hardware store in the Pyrenees. I think they had it on their shelf since the 50's. It's a very clever and detailed item, made from injection moulded plastic. It might be the starting point for a new lighting project the studio is working on... I'll keep you posted on that one as we develop the ideas.
