The Errant Æsthete

‘East’ corner table or desk

The poor old corner is an often neglected domestic space, rejected the world over for its awkward angles and despised even in Feng Shui culture as bringing bad luck to anyone unfortunate enough to be stuck in one. But one man’s trash is another man’s treasure and the first lady of Future Systems, Amanda Levete, has donned her designer’s hat and taken up the plight of the corner in her latest project.

‘Around the Corner’ is Levete’s first solo exhibition, presented by Established & Sons LIMITED, for whom she’s previously designed two of the company’s best-selling products, the Chester sofa and Drift series. Featuring four limited edition pieces the architect-designer has tackled all the practical and aesthetic complexities inherent in right angled-spaces head on.

‘South’ shelves

Each piece has been made from a different material purposefully to highlight how each material’s property affects our associations of its respective function. ‘North’ is a console in neon fibreglass, ‘East’ is a corner table or desk, carved from a single piece of black marble, ‘South’ is a set of two shelves in Corian and ‘West’ is an impossibly sinuous, gravity-defying bench made from laminated wood.

The collection as a whole is part experiment part space solution. The process by which each piece was made demonstrates Levete’s penchant for pushing materials and design to their limits: digital technology was used to cut and carve the forms, which were then finished by hand. But experiments aside, at the heart of each design is a practical proposal of how to make use of an all too prolific but underrated space. Amanda Levete Q&A

Drift (2007)

SLIDE SHOW