LAVA vanity unit

Design: Pitsou Kedem Architects

Lead designer in th studio: Tom Zruya

Pistou Kedem take inspiration for design from observation of nature and the eruption of lava is undoubtedly one of nature’s most fascinating phenomena. By its expulsion, lava produces new life ¬and creates a new truth in its environment.

Lava flows as a red liquid when a volcano erupts, gushing out from deep within the earth. When lava cools down, it got darker and metamorphoses into extremely hard black basalt stone.

Lava is a living substance. It mutates from liquid to solid, from one shade to another. In the design, we wanted to express the meeting point of the two materials, and the two different forms of stone, and freeze the meeting between these two states of matter.

The outcome is an object that echoes the tension between the most free form found in nature ¬– in this case, the liquid lava – and the limitations of the raw material ¬– solid stone, which, in the hands of the craftsman, redefines the boundaries between them.

Such tension and contrast can be found in other unique phenomena in nature such as the northern lights – aurora borealis. Nature’s stunning display of incandescent light formations in the night sky, and the inspiration for the latest object in the Lava series.

Auroras often appear as a fine line along the sky that extends from horizon to horizon in shades of bright green, inducing in the observer a sense of wonder, well-being, and serenity.

Lava makes this change of scenario by grafting the Verde Alpi Marble, which recalls the bright vibrations of the polar night, in a Patinato Bianco Carrara Marble with the artic tones.

The two-material block, finally, transforms itself into a bathroom vanity unit thanks to the drawer and the pivot door on the angles, that hide the solid oak wood storage compartments. Even here the characteristic stony duo is proposed with the handles carved in the colored marble marquetry.