The Yii series is a project of the National Taiwan Craft Research Institute, organised under the art direction of Gijs Bakker, co-founder of Droog Design. The Japanese studio Nendo, also invlved into the project tried to discover sources for new designs through the research into Taiwan’s traditional bamboo handicrafts and furniture. The result is this series of chairs for which the designers applied bamboo-working techniques to tubular steel pipes.
All pieces of the Yii project will be exhibited at La Triennale di Milano, Viale Emilio Alemagna, 6 during this year’s Salone del Mobile from 12 – 17 April.
“Borrowing bamboo handicraft techniques like weaving together thinly sliced sections and joining parts by wrapping them around each other allowed us to give the hard metal a sense of pliancy.
The bamboo artisans visited the metal workshop regularly, and we had many conversations about the project and its capacities. The bamboo-steel chair is the fruit of these conversations: a symbol of new futures for traditional crafts through the cross-fertilization of different techniques and materials”, the designers explain.