The Dutch have a radical way with simplicity in design. They can reduce a design to its basics that is quite startling.
An example of this is Studio Dewi van de Klomp’s Soft Cabinets. They are perfect places to shelter ceramics from the damaging effects of cats, children, housekeepers, and earthquakes. These relatively inexpensive cabinets are produced from a single piece of foam rubber that is cut with precise incisions that allow one to insert and protect objects.
According to the designer, they came about through materials research, “Foam rubber is a familiar and, in my view, an undervalued material. In Soft Cabinets, I want to refocus attention on the material through an unusual application. I show foam rubber in its pure form, with no covering, and embrace the changes that will take place in the material over time and with use.”
The Soft Cabinet High is a cabinet with long, thin legs. The Soft Cabinet Small is the smallest cabinet of the collection. Place your tableware in this cabinet, Van de Klomp says, “and let the small cabinet show you how strong he is, like a young boy who wants to show you that he is a real man.”
Van de Klomp is a young designer based in the Netherlands. In 2013, she graduated from the HKU University of the Arts Utrecht, Netherlands with a degree in Product Design and founded Studio Dewi van de Klomp.
Image above: Dewi van de Klomp’s The Soft Cabinet High
Dewi van de Klomp’s The Soft Cabinet Small. All photographs by Studio Dewi van de Klomp
View van de Klomp’s thesis show of Soft Cabinets at HKU University
Special way