Leaf Tall Vase by Pierre Foulonneau is a highly esteemed winner of the very prestigious 2022 Bronze A' Design Award in Fine Arts and Art Installation Design Competition Category.
BronzeFine Art· 2022
Leaf Tall Vase
Client: Riva
Bronze A' Design Award Winner in Fine Art Category
Verified Award Winner
Verify Award Status for #137448The Design
About Leaf Tall Vase
Nature materializes strongly in the Leaf Tall vase created by French designer Pierre Foulonneau. The vase associate crystal and metal in a poetic design where a golden leaf sits in a transparent pedestal. The results is a vase bearing an unalterable natural presence, even when empty. And, during flower season, the metal part acts as a receptacle for greeting and showcasing fresh flowers.
The Recognition
About the Bronze A' Design Award
Leaf Tall Vase is a Bronze A' Design Award winner, a highly prestigious recognition granted to outstanding designs distinguished by creativity, ingenuity, and astuteness. Bronze winners are amply skillful and strikingly creative artifacts that authenticate the vast experience, imagination, and resourcefulness of their designers. Leaf Tall Vase is expected to be a highly regarded, admired, and cherished object that is notably professional and innovative. This Bronze A' Design Award-winning design incorporates best practices in art, science, design, and technology, and is excellent for its attention to detail. Leaf Tall Vase splendidly satisfies needs, touches desires, charms feelings, and appeals to curiosity.
Interviews
Design Interview
What is the main principle, idea and inspiration behind your design?
I was inspired by the fragile and fleeting aspect of nature, how life comes and goes according to seasons.
What has been your main focus in designing this work? Especially what did you want to achieve?
My intention with the design of the “Leaf” vases was to create objects that captures and mimic nature.
The “Leaf” vases are a family of crystal vases, each one of them holding a metal leaf shaped part. The metal leaves give the object an unalterable natural presence, even when empty. Seated in their transparent pedestals, the leaves play with light and reflections as they change along the day, bringing life into a poetic “still life” composition. And, during flower season, the leaves will act as a receptacle for greeting and showcasing fresh flowers.
How long did it take you to design this particular concept?
Once the idea sprung in my head the design came along rather quickly, it was a matter of weeks i'd say. However, it took me several years to find the right company to develop it with.
Grand Interview
Your innovative fusion of crystal and brass in the Leaf Tall Vase creates a striking interplay of transparency and reflection – could you share the journey that led to this unique material combination and how it evolved during the development process?
Well, the "leaf" part had to have a strong presence and due to the shape and the production process, brass was the best choice. Regarding the vase part it had to "disappear" as much as possible. As a matter of fact, confirmation came through prototyping, we tried some sanded glass and it completely killed the vibe of the vase. So we kept looking until we found the right manufacturer as we wanted to have a quality of crystal that matched the quality of the metal part.
The Leaf Tall Vase maintains its natural presence even when empty, which is quite remarkable – what inspired you to address the dual seasonality of vase functionality, and how did this consideration shape your design decisions?
This is simple observation especially of my mum at home. Also as a designer I always question the status quo and I saw in this seasonality of the vase an opportunity to propose something different.
As a Bronze A' Design Award winner, the Leaf Tall Vase showcases exceptional craftsmanship – could you elaborate on the technical challenges you encountered when creating such deep spun brass forms and achieving the precise angular shapes in crystal?
The spun brass shape actually started as a two parts piece. It is now only one part thanks to the R'n'D at Riva. This company holds seasoned workers and masters of metal with a long culture of product development. Developing a good product takes time, patients, skills and countlessly learning and challenging how things are done. Regarding the crystal it is a combination of finding the right manufacturer and investing to have a good and long lasting tooling to ensure quality and consistency over time.
Behind the Design
Press Kit
Credits, team members and technical details provided by the designer.
- Unique Properties
- The Leaf vase is a crystal vase holding a metal leaf shaped part. The metal leaf give the object an unalterable natural presence, even when empty. Seated in its transparent pedestal, the leaf plays with light and reflections as they change along the day, bringing life into a poetic still life composition.
And, during flower season, the leaf acts as a receptacle for greeting and showcasing fresh flowers. - Dimensions & Packaging
- Dimensions : H 32 x dia 12.5 cm
- Tags
- elegance, crafts, nature inspired, luxury, emotional, poetic
- Production Technology
- The vase is made of italian mouth blown crystal and the leaf is spun brass with silver, 24 carat gold, or nickel black platting finish.
- Design Challenge
- The spun brass part is very deep and therefore challenging to obtain. For the same reason the polishing was challenging too.
We also had to test several suppliers to find one that could deliver the challenging angular shapes of the glass part in a crystal clear finish that allows the leaf to appear inside the vase. - Research
- The project originated with an observation : nature is fragile and fleeting; life comes and goes; dies and reborn, season after season.
Vases by their function are often used half of the year to display flowers and lies empty or hidden the other half.
I then set to research ways to create a vase that keeps evoking nature despite being empty and out of flower season. - Inspiration
- My intention with the Leaf collection was to create objects that captures and mimic nature.
The metal leaf give the object an unalterable natural presence, even when empty.
By their design, the objects from the Leaf collection pay an homage to both Riva’s craftsmanship and the luxurious nature of Brazil. - Project Duration
- Project began in September 2018 and was launched in February 2020.
The design was created in Nantes, France and the development and production happened in Caxias do Sul, Rio Grande do Sul, Brazil. - Operation Flow
- This design is a vase to be use as a decorative item for he home.
The leaf shaped metal part is placed on top of the crystal vase and act as a holder for fresh flowers. - Team Members
- Pierre Foulonneau
- Image Credits
- Image #N°1 : photo by Jean-Charles Queffelec
Image #N°2,3,4,5 : photos by Studio Riva
Sponsored
Explore Beyond Designers.org
Discover products, services and opportunities from our advertising partners.
More to Explore
Related Designs
Explore more award-winning designs from the same category, selected by merit.
