How to grow a crystal chair

I have been waiting for this show since Tokujin Yoshioka's Venus Chair was revealed last year. It somehow reminds me of the installation by Roger Hiorns end of last year in London - Seizure, that "cystallized" the spaces in an abandoned social housing with "blue crystal" (copper sulfate).

















Tokujin shows us how his Venus Chair was being grown from a water tank for his Second Nature Exhibition in Tokyo.

According to Tokujin,

"...a design is not something that is completed through being given a form, but rather something that is completed by the human heart. I also feel that incorporating the principles and movements of nature into ideas will become something important in future design..."

Tokujin used some spongy like fiber structure to control the crystallization process into the chair.


"...In the face of serious global issues, including disruption of nature, I think that each individual today has higher consciousness on the waste and environmental problems... As a designer, I have pondered what design can do in this time of change. I believe that to realize a beauty of the earth is one of the ways to look at such environmental issues. I would be pleased if this exhibition will somewhat become an opportunity to increase awareness of the earth."

all images © tokujin yoshioka

This somehow makes me relate to how can I create my bio-architecture that symbiosis with diatoms as Silica ("crystal") and Sulfate (that being used by Hiorns) are two main nutrients consumed by diatoms. Manipulating crystallization in form-making process with diatom's foods (nitrate, sulfate and silica) enables me to control the diatom cultivation in an architectured condition. In another words, crystallization could be used as a methodology in making the form-work for future diatoms growth that will eventually form a layer of silicon-based skin on the outer layer or fill up spaces within the crystal, which dedicates colours, architectural services (as electronic circuits, oxygen provider/CO2 digestor and etc) and cybernetic functions to the design. A matured system will eventually become a self-sustaining micro-ecology system where 'crystal' plays a role that similar to earth that provides foods and space for diatoms, then frustule (skeleton) of dead diatoms that made of silica will deposit and 'fertilize' the ecological system.