SolidNature and Sabine Marcelis make a splash with ‘The Vondel Fountain, Stacked’ in Amsterdam

Final week, on a heat September night throughout Amsterdam Vogue Week 2024, there was one thing of a pre-show buzz within the metropolis’s Vondelpark as style crowds and a curious public gathered collectively across the park’s central lake. All eyes had been mounted on an amorphous cloth-covered construction that sat mysteriously at its centre. On the close by financial institution, David Mahyari, the younger and charismatic co-founder and CEO of stone model SolidNature, rounded up a speech to mark its unveiling by declaring that ‘the longer term belongs to the dreamers’, earlier than the material was pulled again to unveil a sculptural fountain made up of three stacked blocks of blue onyx. As water started to circulation from the geometric volumes, the group cheered. Passersby stopped to drag out their digital camera telephones and canine walkers sat on the grass to take heed to the sound of the cascading water because the night daylight performed on the fountain’s silvery blue surfaces.

SolidNature unveils ‘The Vondel Fountain, Stacked’

‘The Vondel Fountain, Stacked’ – which is able to stay within the Vondelpark for not less than three months – is the most recent venture in a decade-long collaboration between Amsterdam-based SolidNature and Dutch designer Sabine Marcelis. Earlier works with the model embrace a sequence of rotating marble and onyx chairs and tables, a freestanding pink onyx lavatory, and a seven-metre-long desk and bar made utilizing six several types of travertine.

‘The design course of on this case was very attention-grabbing,’ defined Mahyari on the launch occasion. ‘Usually, you begin from a design and then you definately ask ‘what number of slabs do I would like?’ However on this particular case, there was materials accessible, and Sabine wanted to design across the accessible materials, which was a complete totally different means of designing.’

The blue onyx slabs Mahyari refers to had been initially a part of SolidNature’s prize-winning set up by OMA showcased at Milan Design Week 2023. The repurposing of supplies is one thing Mahyari is eager to proceed to be able to minimise waste and scale back the environmental footprint of the model’s designs. ‘We needed to create influence by making a surprising distinction,’ he informed the gathered crowd. ‘I’d say, with the greenness of the park, you will note that it nearly feels synthetic. It nearly feels prefer it’s AI.’

Certainly, the blue onyx has a man-made aspect, as a result of the blue color is created by layering translucent onyx with an aluminium honeycomb construction and painted blue to reinforce the pure hue of the stone. The vivid shade was echoed all through the occasion; within the garments worn by fashions who welcomed company to the drinks reception, within the cups company drank from and even the drinks themselves.

‘Water has been a recurring aspect in my work, appearing as each a medium and a supply of inspiration,’ says Marcelis, highlighting water’s capacity to rework areas by means of motion, sound, and atmosphere. ‘My journey has included designing fountains for famend establishments and types, such because the Mies van der Rohe Pavilion in Barcelona and luxurious style home Fendi.’ she provides. ‘We have performed loads of collaborations with style manufacturers and my strategy shouldn’t be dissimilar to that of style, creating actually attention-grabbing silhouettes with lovely supplies. We have performed many tasks along with SolidNature all around the world for style manufacturers, so it appears like a full circle second to carry it again to Amsterdam this time.’

The theatrical unveiling and collaborative nature of the Vondelpark fountain venture is a part of a longer-term marketing campaign of Mahyari’s to place and function SolidNature very similar to a luxurious style model. This may be seen in its give attention to small-scale product launches, one-off installations and the introduction of trend-led colors and supplies.

Inventive collaborations have seen the model associate with luxurious cashmere model Harden on an attire assortment knowledgeable by the totally different kinds of stone, sculptures with jewelry designer Ward Strootman and seating with Iranian artist Bita Fayyazi. ​

Impressed by style homes, Mahyari, who based the corporate together with his brother in 2011 and took over as CEO in 2018, structured SolidNature’s choices into 4 tiers: Normal (off-the-shelf tiles), Readymade (cut-to-size tiles for bigger tasks), Made-to-measure ({custom} designs for architects), and Bespoke (unique providers for shoppers with distinctive requests, like custom-coloured stone or speciality coatings). This strategy permits the model to supply a full vary of tailor-made providers, from customary merchandise to extremely specialised tasks, just like the segmentation seen in style with ready-to-wear and high fashion.

‘We’re distinctive in that we provide all these providers–usually corporations solely do tiles or concentrate on innovation, however not every thing. We now have the entire bundle,’ says Mahyari, highlighting a number of the firm’s extra elaborate bespoke tasks, like growing a water-resistant coating for an onyx pool or injecting pink and inexperienced pigments into onyx for Prada Basis elevators.

It’s the day after the revealing of Marcelis’ sculpture and Mahyari is again on the model’s spectacular manufacturing facility and showroom on the outskirts of Amsterdam. As we stroll by means of the house marveling on the manufacturing facility machines and huge stone library, he discusses SolidNature’s plans for turning into a zero-waste operation.

He plans to create a round buy-back system whereby stone utilized in luxurious retailer fit-outs could be put in in such a means that it may be returned and repurposed on the finish of its industrial life; how offcuts in his manufacturing facility’s ‘stone graveyard’ could possibly be utilized by younger designers, and even methods wherein stone mud could possibly be reused.