What occurs whenever you form Corian, a fabric greatest identified for kitchen and toilet functions, into trendy furnishings? One thing arrestingly lovely – extra indicative of museum-grade sculpture than a mere useful sink and countertop. However that’s precisely what completed inside designer Sandra Nunnerley has achieved along with her ‘Celestial Assortment’ of Corian tables.
Corian is a well-recognized factor to most design professionals. The fabric, produced from the fusion of acrylic polymer and a variant of aluminium, has been a mainstay of kitchen and toilet countertop surfaces for many years as an economical and non-porous different to pure stones like granite or marble. Corian will be moulded into distinctive or customised shapes utilizing a course of known as thermoforming, through which the fabric is heated to a temperature the place it turns into pliable, after which is fashioned to a particular form or mould. In contrast to pure stone, which is rather more tough and labour-intensive to sculpt, Corian is much less generally used for furnishings however, as designer Sandra Nunnerley will attest, its versatility in color, sample, pliability and weight makes it an excellent different to pure stone.
(Picture credit score: Stephen Kent Johnson)
Sandra Nunnerley on ‘Celestial Assortment’ Corian tables
Corian can simply tackle many alternative kinds and parts will be moulded collectively seamlessly. ‘The good factor [about Corian] is that you should use it in sculptural kinds and we are able to do great inlays. You may inlay bronze in it. You can do all kinds of issues with it,’ Nunnerley says. A local New Zealander and proprietor of the eponymous inside design studio in New York, Nunnerley has original Corian right into a collection of up to date console and low tables in her ‘Celestial Assortment’, which first debuted in 2016 with a set of smaller occasional tables known as ‘Solaris’ and has been renewed with the addition of items that combine bronze as a design accent inside the Corian kind.
The 2022 replace of the gathering has been made solely for New York’s Maison Gerard and consists of a black espresso desk with bronze inlays, oval high and a tapered base known as ‘Aurora’, and two variations of Nunnerley’s ‘Nova’ console desk – one in black with bronze inlays, and a barely smaller mannequin in off-white with bronze inlays. Just like the ‘Aurora’, the ‘Nova’ consoles include an oval-shaped high and gracefully tapered base. ‘We wished to present [the pieces] extra of a jewel-like presence. The bronze inlays did that. They elevated the look,’ Nunnerley explains. In her phrases, the ‘Nova’ tables signify ‘the visible nova of a celestial star – flaring up in brightness earlier than returning to its unique kind’. The items are smooth, with rounded corners and stylish curves alongside the tapered base.
(Picture credit score: Stephen Kent Johnson)
A key consideration, apart from the aesthetics that may be achieved with Corian, says Nunnerley, is that ‘you possibly can transfer these tables round. They’re mild, compared to marble tables.’ Maybe extra importantly, Corian is an environmentally pleasant materials, based on her. Whereas many designers and shoppers have a choice for pure stone, she factors out that mining for marble and granite ‘is actually merciless to the surroundings’. Corian, which is man-made, additionally has comparatively low VOCs (unstable natural compounds, current in lots of constructing supplies, furnishings and finishes together with paint, are a type of indoor air air pollution), and has been licensed as having low VOC emissions by the UL Greenguard customary. She provides that the adhesive used to bind items of Corian additionally has VOC emissions.
Nunnerley’s ‘Celestial Assortment’ of tables is markedly up to date and prone to enchantment to these in search of clear geometry of their inside design, though she notes that it additionally works nicely in each transitional and conventional rooms. The result’s dramatic, however unobtrusive – one thing that can be utilized with quite a lot of décor types. ‘There is a designer I work with In London who specialises in conventional English design. He has purchased lots of my aspect tables and put them into conventional rooms,’ Nunnerley says.
The flexibility and shapeshifting talents of Corian undoubtedly make it a rival to conventional supplies. We’re wanting ahead to seeing in what revolutionary methods it will likely be reworked subsequent.
nunnerley.com (opens in new tab)
maisongerard.com (opens in new tab)
(Picture credit score: Stephen Kent Johnson)
(Picture credit score: Stephen Kent Johnson)
(Picture credit score: Stephen Kent Johnson)
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