A Mirror Darkly
& collect
Nick Ross was born in Scotland in 1986. He studied at Gray´s School of Art in Aberdeen on the Industrial Design programme where he was awarded the Arts & Heritage prize for his graduation project in 2008. In early 2009 he moved to Rotterdam to work under Tomáš Gabzdil Libertíny and later moved to Stockholm to work for FRONT until the spring of 2010. In 2011 he became a tutor at Gray´s School of Art and worked there until enrolling on the masters programme in Interior Architecture and Furniture Design at Konstfack in Stockholm where he received his MFA in 2013. Upon graduating he worked as assistant to Matti Klenell until founding his own studio in early 2014.
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The fact that human beings, unlike animals, recognize themselves in the reflected images of their bodies forms speculations on the role of the image in the development of the human psyche. One’s awareness of one's own position within the physical world and the ability to imagine that position in relation to other physical objects is one which makes the mirror such an alluring object to study. To start off I wanted to go back to a point where humans had just started to place importance on the ability to see themselves in some sort of reflection which they could control and contain in some form. There is actually no concrete evidence but some historians believe that small ceramic bowls may have been used to contain water which could be used as table top mirrors during the late Stone Age. The fact that it cannot be proven also adds to the objects mystery. Is this a new object, or an old one reinvented? I wanted to take this notion and create a modern object which questioned its possible past and its relation to ‘the self’. 2013 Mirror, Copper, Digital Print, Silver Oxide, Carnauba Wax - 30 x 30 x 10 cm
The choices made by those who write and disseminate history can become so deep set that once our understanding changes we are still unable to accept them. We choose to curate or direct the past in the way we want it to be seen as it affirms the decisions we make in the present. If we later find this to be untrue it can question the reasoning behind those past decisions which are in turn based on the then present understanding of past decisions. In this case I chose to look at our connection with the marble sculptures of the ancient Romans and Greeks. These to us are symbols of artistic and cultural good taste. The opposite of this could be seen as what the Romans might call barbaric. We have known years that Roman and Greek sculptures were painted and in recent years thanks to new technology we have been able to re-create some of those vibrant works of art as they originally might have looked. Although this is what we would now consider to be true representations we still cannot accept them. To us they are garish, crude and kitsch. But can a new object change our mind-set? 2013 Bianco Carrara Marble, Transparent Spray Paint (blue) - 45 x 45 x 80 cm
'Baltic Gold’ looks at cultural transfer and trade routes in ancient times. They serve as the carriers of information yet due to the large distances travelled and the many exchanges of hand which take place during trips information can get twisted. The hypothetical ‘Amber Road’ is a trade route of amber from Scandinavia and the Baltic states down to the Mediterranean, which may have existed as early as the late Palaeolithic era. It is said that the amber road may have caused the bringing of the bronze age to Scandinavia due to the flood of new information coming in from the south when trading with cultures such as the Mycenaean’s and the ancient Egyptian’s. I wanted to take this notion and transform it into an object, using the story of the Object Mediator as a method for creating the narrative around it. The outcome is an archetypical bookshelf in raw polyurethane, the bookshelf was chosen as it holds knowledge yet it is not seen as an item of high status. Overtime the material darkens in UV light which means after years of usage it will contain the ghost shadows of the books and objects which filled it shelves, glimpses of its past use. 2013 Raw Polyurethane, Brass - 40 x 30 x 200 cm
Since ancient times awards have been given out to recognise success and achievement, the modern ‘trophy’ is based on the vessels given out during the Olympic Games in ancient Greece which were designed to contain sacred oils. Over time the focus of the trophy's form has shifted from a container to what is now merely a symbol of its past function. The awards were created by casting synthetic plaster into sports trophy forms. With the awards for 2011 we wanted to put the contents back into the trophy to create something with more substance. By taking iconic trophy shapes we created solids from the inside vacuum within to create a type of inverted form. These solids are then placed upon tripods (a form used in ancient Rome for a similar purpose) so that the pieces are suspended, placing a sense of importance and fragility upon them. 2011 Steel, Copper Plating, Jesmonite - Various sizes In collaboration with Fraser Reid
Ever since architects started taking down interior walls to create airy open spaces, a new set of problems have arisen. Whilst these areas are more communal, there is an issue with finding discrete, private areas which take you away from the noise of open spaces. Confession is a new furniture archetype which seeks to resolve these problems of privacy and seclusion. It enables the creation of a space for a quick meeting, to hear a personal story, a quiet place to read the paper with a coffee or even somewhere to indulge in office gossip. It also reminds us of what we lose in the era of shared and open communication. Instead of erecting walls to create personal and confidential spaces, which can prove expensive, these communal areas can be furnished in a new way at a fraction of the cost and hassle. 2012 Steel, Oak, Polyester Felt - 183 x 70 x 100 cm
The chair is the pinnacle piece of human creation as it holds our form and raises us off the ground, a sign of our movement form simple cave dwellers to the people we are today. But in most cases in nature we revert back to our humble beginnings by sitting on the ground. This can be seen as a form of escapism from our built environment, with all our tools and technology, but since the modern human (homo sapiens sapiens) was born with tool in hand there is no such thing as a tool free humanity. It is human nature to create tools or aids, an existence without this would not be a human existence. With this in mind I wanted to create something that was symbol for our human nature to create new tools or aids. The natural world is not safe from our ‘human’ nature to populate it with man made objects. Stray is such an object, it challenges our assumptions about furniture and seating. Imagining a new object type and tapping into our curious nature. 2008 Birch Plywood, Steel - 80 x 45 x 45 cm
Unable to start with a blank canvas, nature must work with what already exists to create improved variants in what is a constant development process. The application of this fluid method to the project enables a never-ending variety of forms, colours, and materials to be used; a working platform that continues to expand. Unconstrained by time, the collection is never quite complete, instead a perpetual work in progress. 2011 Pine, Rubber, Ink, Wool - Various sizes (Aboriginal chair 85 x 45 x 34 cm) In collaboration with Fraser Reid
With modern mapping technology we can accurately create digital versions of our planet and with new machining technology we can then physically produce these forms with extreme accuracy. The physical data is taken from a lakes bathymetry scan and this data is then imported into a 3-D programme to the create digital form. This form is then re-translated into the physical object. 2008 Pewter - 10x 12 x 7 cm
  Inspirations.  
Speaker
A sculptural speaker rendered with GLSL signed distance functions. (C) Mario Gagliardi 2018
Rudolf Belling
Rudolf Belling was sculptor, designer, architect and stage designer. In 1908, he founded a studio fo...
Streampal
Streampal is a lifestream robot for Youtubers, Instagrammers and others who want to record passages ...
The e-scooter Boom
The German Ministry of Transport announced that it will legalize e-scooters as road vehicles. All Ge...
Jonathan Ive leaves Apple
On June 28, Apple´s chief designer Jonathan Ive (born 1967) announced that he would leave Apple lat...
Abstract Form
Click 4 times on the canvas and watch how an abstract form is generated: https://www.mariogagliardi....
Essential Water
In many regions of the planet, water is increasingly becoming rare. Our understanding of water, refl...
The Venice Pavillon
The Venice Pavillon interprets the history of Venice as a point of contact between West and East. Sh...
Generative Botany
An early app for generative graphics, realized in 2000 in the (now deprecated) Adobe Flash. To use t...
Cognition
This experiment looks at the process of human cognition. Letters get progressively filled with color...
Creative Changemakers & Future City
Promotional sites for the initiative Creative Changemakers and the event Future City. (C) 2018 MGD M...
The Persona Project
Social media are powerful because humans use the same parts of the brain to interact with machines a...
Blacker Box
Blacker Box is a design expression for an Intelligent Speaker. (C) Mario Gagliardi Design 2017
Stories of the Future
A generator for news headlines of the future. Every 9 seconds, a new story is generated: http://mar...
Oilspill, Carpet, Camouflage
Pattern generators for interesting surface patterns and backgrounds. Click "Start" to start, "Change...
Alessandro Mendini 1931-2019
For Alchimia, design is a cyle: everything that will have to happen has already happened, and the im...
VAW
In late 2018, we proposed a strategic repositioning of Vienna Art Week. We suggested a fundamental...
Typography
Collection of beautiful typography and graphic design.
Digital Biology
Interior studies for public indoor spaces merging digital and biological environments. Wall modules ...
Podchain
Podchain is an integrated design concept for on-demand autonomous transport. To optimize kinetic ene...
Construction of boat hull
made by me at the CFPArts school in Geneva
Fashion, Food, Transport
FUTURE CITY premiered at Vienna Art Week 2018 on November 20, 2018, at MAK Museum of Applied Arts in...
WRECK--Regeneration Experiment of Wasted Daily-use Ceramics from Chaozhou, China
WRECK, the destruction of decorum, the ruin of culture. BENTU went deep into daily-use ceramics indu...
Time
How do you express time without numbers or watch hands? Clocks abstract time into a measurable, un...
Low cost urban transport
Combining contemporary technology with a focus on low cost and reliability, this neighborhood transp...
AI assistant
With the advance of digitalisation, items which once had a central position in households have disap...
Hybrid urban scooter
A low-cost hybrid urban scooter for developing countries running either on electric battery or on bi...
Omnidirectional Speaker
Sculptural ominidirectional speakers, projecting sound recorded from an omnidirectional microphone i...
An organic structure for bikes
A sports bike for urban and mountain environments. The aluminium frame provides for increased stabil...
S tables
modul for table
One Hundred Thousand Games
One Hundred Thousand Games is an online game with unlimited levels. It takes the genre of first-per...
Jerszy Seymour Amateurtopia
Berlin born and –based designer Jerszy Seymour studied engineering at South Bank Polytechnic 1987 ...
Emotibots
Emotibots are shape-shifting social home robots interacting with humans. Robots will in the future i...
Black Box. A Cabinet of Robotic Curiosities
The Vitra Campus has a new exhibition space: in one of the houses at the southern entrance, a Black ...
Breathe
The determined breaths of a glassblower are seldom included in the finished product of their labour,...
City Garden II ´Spaces´
Family garden for 5: spacy rooms
Charles Tassin
Interior designer Charles Tassin has developed a very personal approach to decoration. Merging the s...
penccil: This was 2017
The penccil year in review is a project selection for 2017, this year curated by Mario Gagliardi. Se...
Cutting the edges
Arctic Paper launches new swatch books for the brands Arctic, Amber and G-Print, as well as the two ...
Mugs
Intentionally on the very edge of usability, this project takes ubiquitous objects - in this case co...
serpentine 2017
exhibition, schauspiel köln, cologne. steelobjects, ceramic reliefs.
BS1
temporary accessible sculpture.
Functional Pasta
Pasta based on the geometry of a Möbius strip, a geometric surface with the distinction of having o...
We Ar
University of Sunderland MA Glass and Ceramics Show
Maurice Binder
Maurice Binder was a film title designer best known for his work on 14 James Bond films including th...
Coffee maker
Visualization of the process of coffee making. The aim was not to use words.
Mapping Reality
During a walk through Berlin Moabit I sketched my perception of the surrounding streets. The result ...
TYPOGRAPHY
RESEARCH
Green Architecture…. Is it blessing or curse!!
GREEN ARCHITECTURE….IT IS GOOD FOR THE NATURAL WORLD OR MAYBE IT WILL BE A MESS OF THE TREES AND P...
Vico Magistretti
Vico Magistretti (1920 - 2006) studied in Lausanne and Milano. He was one of the main protagonists o...
Glowscape
Study for a LED light installation. LED diodes are installed on a net of wires and placed over the l...
Structured Reflection
These 3D-printed vases feature finely faceted surface structures which create intriguing light refle...
Gaetano Pesce: Abstraction is boring
"Abstraction is boring and limited as a mode of expression. Reducing and reducing designs means that...
Jeff Zimmerman
Jeff Zimmermann is a Chicago based artist. Born in Kentucky, Zimmerman spent his childhood among nat...
Home Patterns
“Home Patterns” is a new series of patterns by Longstory, designed for printing on textiles, wal...
The Menu
The food menu as we know it today is an invention of the 19th century. Traditionally, during a meal ...
American Food
Davide Luciano is a New York based conceptual food and beverage photographer and motion artist. His ...
Organic Public
Contemporary cities are in need of public spaces which work better for their citizens. This proposal...
Michael Schoner
Michael Schoner develops 3D and 2D designs in different scales varying from architecture and interio...
Design for Disaster
"A disaster zone where everything is lost offers the perfect opportunity for us to take a fresh look...
The art of improvising art
The recently abandoned administrative headquarters of Austrian Post, an imposing turn of the century...
Memphis Posters
4 posters by the legendary Italian design collective Memphis Milano.
A Flat Named Desire
An inspirational collection of interior objects.
Just Before Paradise
“And just as we learn about our lives from others, so, too, do we let others shape our understandi...
Expression/Information
Painting is seen as a form of practice that—contrary to canonical accounts—in no way shies away ...
Total Automation
In The Promise of Total Automation, artists examine technology in its complexity. They point out our...
German Art since 1960
German ‘paragons of painting’ such as Georg Baselitz, Jörg Immendorff and Markus Lüpertz have ...
Sky Walk
The Dolní Morava tower Sky Walk by Zdenek Franek is a conceptual building, and it offers visitors ...
A Summer For The Modernists
"Today every city, town, or village is affected by it. We have entered the Neon Civilization and bec...
Joe Colombo: Total Furnishing Unit
The Total furnishing unit: Bathroom by Joe Colombo, Milano 1971.
also:
Citta design development
Images from the design development for the cabinet system "Citta" Design: Mario Gagliardi
Tessuto
Brass bowl "Tessuto" Design: Mario Gagliardi for Mario and Casa
Sole
Dining chair "Sole" Design: Mario Gagliardi for Mario and Casa.
Isole
Couch tables "Isole" Design: Mario Gagliardi
Nuvole
Shelf "Nuvole" Design: Mario Gagliardi
Quadrifoglio
Side tables "Quadrifoglio" Design: Mario Gagliardi
Paravento
Paravent "Paravento" Design: Mario Gagliardi
Khalifa
Storage unit/couch table "Khalifa" in 70/30 brass. Design: Mario Gagliardi for Mario and Casa.
Fumetto
Highback chair "Fumetto" Design: Mario Gagliardi for Mario & Casa.
Cavaliere
Stool "Cavaliere" Design: Mario Gagliardi for Mario and Casa.
Dadi
Brass object "Dadi". Design: Mario Gagliardi for Mario and Casa.
Villici
Wooden toy figurines "Villici" Design: Mario Gagliardi for Mario and Casa.
Ryoku
Lounge chair "Ryoku" Design: Mario Gagliardi for Mario and Casa.
Catenina
Side table "Catenina" Design: Mario Gagliardi for Mario and Casa.
Aurora
Lounge chair "Aurora" Design: Mario Gagliardi for Mario and Casa.
UFO
Couch table "UFO" Design: Mario Gagliardi for Mario and Casa.
Amatera
Bench "Amatera" Design: Mario Gagliardi for Mario and Casa.
Apero
Lounge chair "Apero" designed by Mario Gagliardi for Mario and Casa.
Aitutaki
Armchair "Aitutaki" designed by Mario Gagliardi for Mario and Casa.
Whiskey Bay Press Merc
Merch
Bookcover mockup
book cover design idea
PAISAJES DE L'EMPORDÀ
Collage
SALTO
Sculpture
HISTORIA DE UN HUEVO
Sculpture
Alpina
Chair "Alpina" designed by Mario Gagliardi for Mario and Casa.
Pianeti
Rug set "Pianeti", designed by Mario Gagliardi for Mario and Casa. Handcrafted in 100% New Zealand M...
Flow
Dining Table "Flow" designed by Mario Gagliardi for Mario and Casa.
Gran Turismo
Lounge chair Gran Turismo, Design Mario Gagliardi for Mario and Casa.
curve wood
Title is affranchir la ligne, a public art commission for the lobby of a sports complex, plays with...
Printed textures
3D printing has become a viable production method enabling the rapid production of small and medium-...
Candy Morandi
Giorgio Morandi's ceramic vessels have been the inspiration for this project. Morandi´s objects are...
SCARABOOK
SCARABOOK is the combination of Scarabottolo and the English word book (but perhaps we ought to say ...
Haribo Centennial
Haribo, the company behind the bear-shaped fruit-flavored jelly candy from Germany, is 100 years old...
Spring 2020 - Project 2 - MassArt
A school project in which we had to redesign a small triangle shape park near Harvard Square in Camb...
Objects of Desire
»Surrealism and Design 1924 – Today« 28.09.2019 – 19.01.2020 at Vitra Design Museum Surrealis...
Marqueterie
A contemporary marqueterie effect for a combined side table/console with hidden drawers. © Mario Ga...
Chromaglass
Chromaglass is a cocktail glass displaying its ingredients through colors. An inner insulating conta...
Nature morte/Nature vivante
Until recently, artists, designers and architects were used to working with inert, non-living materi...
Upcycled
Furniture design from upcycled materials: Stools from old rubber tyres, oil barrels and washing mach...
chair_ONE
chair_ONE is the best known design by Konstantin Grcic, a German furniture designer whose work is eq...
Cazal
Glasses by German manufacturer Cazal were considered a sought-after accessory in New York's hip-hop ...
Reactive Space
Inspired by Plato´s allegory of the cave, this is an architectural study for spaces reacting to its...