fbpx
We rely on advertising revenue to support the creative content on our site. Please consider whitelisting our site in your settings, or pausing your adblocker while stopping by.

Get the Magazine

Never underestimate the power of a tiny insect. After all, the entire Jurassic Park franchise began with a single amber-trapped mosquito. And now, Vancouver designer Calen Knauf credits the inspiration for his latest piece of furniture to a fly.

During a trip to design curator Alice Stori Liechtenstein’s Austrian castle, Knauf noticed a bug forming concentric ripples as it moved across a water-covered table. He later returned to this memory to develop his own petri dish-esque composition, the appropriately named Flywater occasional table.

Granted, the design swaps out actual flies for a trio of waxed aluminum legs, each dipped into its own individual puddle of tinted epoxy resin. Once set, these three forms are then immersed in a series of consecutively larger communal puddles, increasing both the tabletop’s thickness and its enchanting ripple effect.

Flywater made its debut during Toronto’s DesignTO festival at Slanted/Enchanted, an exhibition organized by local designer Jamie Wolfond to explore fabrication techniques outside the realm of industrial production.

Playing Fly on the Wall to Calen Knauf’s Design Process

An insect-inspired side table demonstrates the merits of paying close attention to one’s surroundings.

We rely on advertising revenue to support the creative content on our site. Please consider whitelisting our site in your settings, or pausing your adblocker while stopping by.