Inspired by African savanna trees, the New York-based designer Alvaro Uribe has created the Savanna Collection for Style Factory.

The Savanna Tables bring the spirit of the African Savanna Tree through a beautiful metaphorical division of their surface as if they were leaves. With Walnut veneered tops and chrome-plated legs, the tables play with organic forms and dynamic relations to bring the spirit of nature into homes. The center table offers multiple uses as its “leaves” are attached in different heights. All together the tables represent the fusion of industry, poetry and nature.

+ Designer: Alvaro Uribe
+ Manufacturer: stylefactory

Savanna Collection for Style Factory, image courtesy Alvaro Uribe

Savanna Collection for Style Factory, image courtesy Alvaro Uribe

Savanna Collection for Style Factory, image courtesy Alvaro Uribe

Savanna Collection for Style Factory, image courtesy Alvaro Uribe

Savanna Collection for Style Factory, image courtesy Alvaro Uribe

Digital Cocoon, is the 2nd prize proposal designed by Italian architect Marco De Gregorio for the Silk Road Map competition, it would be exhibited in the Expo Shanghai from the 6 to 13th of October in the Italian Pavillion.

The Silk Road has since the antiquity been a historical passage across the Eurasian continent and it has enhanced trade and relationships between China, Asia and Europe.

Digital Cocoon, drawing courtesy Marco De Gregorio

The project's ideogram interprets and articulates these intricate set of travel connections and the silken pad. An object that expresses flexibility, the quality of being flexible, and that creates options for encounters is proposed.

The loop structure of the object is a transposition of both the road net and the cocoon which symbolizes the space, the transformation, and the preciosity of the silk.

Digital Cocoon, drawing courtesy Marco De Gregorio

Digital Cocoon, drawing courtesy Marco De Gregorio

The object is conceived as an iconic pavilion that redraws analogically the meanings of the Silk Road and the silk spun cocoon, celebrating the thoughts of the travel and the meeting.

The pavilion can be used as an outdoor living room providing spontaneous and scheduled activities, public events; it allows various access points, perspectives and experiences, from the exterior to the interior, multiplying and playing the individual visitor's position in the space.

Digital Cocoon, drawing courtesy Marco De Gregorio

Digital Cocoon, drawing courtesy Marco De Gregorio

The travelling pavilion is conceived to be taken apart and can be transported easily. The morphological design can be made possible through new digital techniques and be realized with new advanced materials. As the caravans made their paths, the design object will traces the same route-net.

Digital Cocoon acknowledges its own iconic status and expresses its own poetic representation.

+ Designer: Marco De Gregorio

+ All images, drawing and description courtesy Marco De Gregorio