GRAS
The Gathering Hand
London Design Festival
17 – 25 September 2022
On the occasion of London Design Festival 2022, Blue Mountain School presents The Gathering Hand by award-winning architecture practice GRAS: A collection of furniture and homewares made in collaboration with leading British makers.
The Gathering Hand is a celebration of the innate human drive to make, derived from five decades of dedicated, hands-on creation – historically in the fields of conservation, architecture and interiors – as well as GRAS’s inter- disciplinary approach to design.
The collection offers three product typologies, tables, vessels and objects, each made from tactile and evocative materials. Specialist makers and manufacturers have used a combination of traditional and contemporary tech- niques, such as bespoke joinery, mouth-blown glass and sandblasted stone, resulting in sensory yet functional pieces. Forms are carefully-proportioned and decidedly simple to reveal the innate qualities and textures of each singular material.
Exhibited for the first time are the Carpenter’s Side, Low and Dining Tables; the Glassblower’s Tumbler, Carafe and Vase; and the Stonemason’s Weights, Bowl and Vase.
The Carpenter’s Tables were crafted from fumed oak by furniture maker Namon Gaston and assembled using traditional joinery. Antwerp-based Studio Corkinho produced the tabletops from cork tiles that are heat-treated to create a tactile surface.
The Glassblower’s Vessels were created collaboratively with Cambridge-based glass artist Edmond Byrne, known for his exploration of colour, texture and form. Each of the mouth-blown objects are dipped several times in water to produce a unique crackled patina.
The Stonemason’s Objects were manufactured in Dorset by Albion Stone, using computer-controlled machinery to shape the Portland stone into smooth, elemental forms. The products are then bead-blasted to expose the subtle complexities on the stone surfaces.
The installation at Blue Mountain School displays the products in a raw, utilitarian space that complements GRAS’s holistic approach to design and the collection’s architectural palette of stone, wood, glass and cork.
Biography
GRAS is an award-winning architecture and design practice based in Edinburgh. The studio was formed by Gunnar Groves-Raines in 2020, following the consolidation of two successful, family run practices. The importance of the making process is integral to the studio’s approach, and this ethos is applied across their multidisciplinary output, which ranges from large-scale architectural projects, and the conservation of historic buildings, to the creation of handheld objects.
Further Information
Further Reading
people
GRAS: The Gathering Hand
context
