Werner Aisslinger:
the visionary allrounder

Werner Aisslinger (*1964) receives the renowned A&W Designer of the Year 2014 Award for his extensive and multifaceted creative work, which A&W discovered early and has followed since. He understands to stage visions – like his prize-winning mobile home ,Loft Cube’ or an energetically self-sustaining kitchen, as well as to design reliable industrial products and distinct furniture for advant-garde manufacturers. The exclusive exhibition, mounted by him and founded by A&W, was shown in the context of Passagen program during the imm Cologne at the Kölnischer Kunstverein.

The exhibition is structured by seven thematic islands – farming, materials, modules, nature, story telling, upcycling and utopia – which allow to promenade through the main subjects of Werner Aisslinger´s work and research through the course of his career.

Stilwerk is going to bring the exhibition to in three more locations in Germany, to show a surprisingly divert overview of studio aisslingers work.

Up-cycling & tuning
The textile cover is designed for a sports car from the 1970s.The car‘s outfit is a colourful reminder of the possible further uses of old cars, if they are freshened up aesthetically in the sense of a “car fashion.” Upcycling & tuning are considered here as a tool for prolonging the life cycles of products. After all, the CO2 footprint of a newly manufactured
car is hard to justify, despite its lower fuel and energy consumption. Werner Aisslinger turns into a redesigner of
pre-existing objects here.

cooperation and friendly support :
Kvadrat, Denmark
using Hallingdal 65

farming
The project “Kitchen Farming” exhibits a new concept for kitchens which become a domestic laboratory in which fish farming, the cultivation of vegetables and mushroom growing are part of a cyclical system. The kitchen of the future is less of a spaceship but rather a place for the production of food. Trends like “urban farming” and“integrated farming” are not
just ecotopias of an urban bohemia but are actually tested in Paris or Berlin, surpassing industrial agricultural efficiency standards fifteen-fold. Berlin based “Topfarmers” implemented into the modular Kitchen farming-installation created by Flötotto´s ADD the kitchen laboratory that is all about production: in the Aquaponic cycle of the fish provide the manure for the plants, just like the
mushrooms growing on coffee grounds.

cooperation and friendly support of:
Flötotto, Germany 2013 with ADD system

and Aquaponic Installation by Topfarmers, Berlin

nature

This vision of a textile bathroom-biotope integrates plants into a natural water cycle that requires no additional resources. The inspiration for the material comes from the Namib Desert beetle. This beetle collects and stores the morning mist for later use. Here, the invention of fog collecting fabrics, which can filter drinking water from morning mists, is utilised as a wall covering in the shower absorbing the steam from the hot water and passing it on to the plants integrated into the installation. These microfarming plantations invented by Berlin based Infarm-group produce through a indoor hydroponic growing system an efficient food technology production with various soja plants. The bathroom is turned into a textile environment, countering the hard materials that dominate traditional bathrooms with a soft, nature-oriented vision. The textile washbasin is designed to change its volume when their exteriors are “rolled up” – adjusting the amount of water to the respective usage.

cooperation and friendly support:

Axor Hansgrohe, Germany

microfarming by INfarm, Berlin

www.infarm.de

storytelling
Design has after”form follows function” and “form follows emotion” finally reached the narrative age. Products need to incorporate poetry and stories to warrant its existence. The sofa as an epicenter of a modern home is here
changed radical into an island with various zones for all kinds of family businesses. The brief for the design
of the “bikini-island” comes from the society itsself: various recent activities change our behaviour on sofas. Families and their kids are “chilling” as well as reading, downloading files, writing emails, gaming, chatting with friends, watching movies on a pad, relaxing, talking, thinking, meditating ….this
evolution of daily life needs a new design approach to a furniture typology like a sofa. The basis of the modular design of “bikini-island” into an in-house landscape stems from my belief in
life as an overall collage.

bikini island
for Moroso, Italy 2013

utopia

The “Chair Farm” – one of Werner Aisslinger´s most forward-thinking ideas is based on the search for different, advanced as well as realistic visions that break away from the conventions of current industrial manufacturing. What would it be like if we could grow and harvest our own furniture? How can you plant products in plantations? Here in a hollow frame in the shape of a chair, plants have been allowed to grow. Man designs the furniture, nature then takes over the implementation. Fantasy? Werner Aisslinger already sees the next step – plants which without any additional assistance form to the shape of a piece of furniture because it has been engineered into their DNA.

chair farm

ongoing experiment

by studio aisslinger, berlin 2012-2014

behive
The “behive” design seems simple, but to reach thisfinal result we have overcome several challenges.“behive” was created using polyethylene injection moulding, but the body of the lamp couldn’t be created in a single mould and therefore we divided it into 6 equal parts, made individually and then assembled into the final structure. The challenge that we met successfully was to develop a special
system of joints between the parts that didn’t obscure the light and gave continuity to the volume. When turned off it becomes an elegant artistic
sculpture and when turned on the light makes it extremely striking.

foscarini, Italy 2011/2012

tree series
The “tree series” family is designed as a linear and sculptural standing or suspending lighting concept with its aethetic origin in the abstraction of shapes in nature. The underlying concept to this series of lights is one stem that forks out into roots and various branches to form the foot and the shade fixtures respectively. The lamp shade can be seen as an abstraction of a treetop similar to architectural tree scale models.

for B.Lux, Spain 2013

bikini wood chairs
The four leg and swivel chair family are an excursion into the most traditional material to design a chair : massive wood and bentwood. Manufactured in Udine the concept is based on local sourcing and quality standards of a long tradition of Italian wood-chair manufacturing alongside with the challenge of creating a sculptural minimal archetype
of an armchair.

for Moroso, Italy 2013

hoodie
Is a soft and fluent designed monomaterial lighting collection with an intense indirect light and an overall organic friendly and sculptural approach.
The base is at the same time a bowl to collect precious objects which are displayed and highlighted in the lightcone. The design is avoiding material mixes and additive details – the shape is a smooth and amicable compagnion in homes and public areas.

for B.Lux, Spain 2013

endless shelf
The “Endless Shelf” is self explanatory. It just goes on and on. In any direction you wish. It’s secret lies in the cross-shaped die-cast aluminium joints which hold together the horizontal and vertical panels and which are at the same time are an archetypic signage for a connectionpoint. Three types of joints and a single board give endless possibilities of building a bookshelf grid into architecture. Designed in 1994 and first self produced with local Berlin carpenters and aluminium casting suppliers and distributed to friends and some shops Werner Aisslinger gave the copyright to Porro, Italy in 1995.

for Porro, Italy 1995

level 34
The approach and concept to create this system was the vision of a domestic office landscape: ‘In the wake of hardware and software, the next priority
is to develop roomware’. The elevated bench as a plateau for containers, cabinets, shelving, tables and seating is the concept behind “level 34”. The 34-centimetre-high bench, which contains the system’s cable management, is the basic element of this multi-functional furniture programme. The components can be used to create workplaces, meeting points, storage areas and room dividers.The combination of just a few elements makes it possible to create highly diverse interiors.

for vitra, Switzerland 2005

plus unit
To finalize this product took 4 years with the Magis-RD-Team. Based on a very complicated idea:
an endless composable drawer system – the team tried the impossible: the “plus unit” is the worldwide first modular drawer-system which is stacking and adjoining. As each drawer unit is self-loading, endless compositions are possible. The single drawer-units in ABS are connected with aluminium extrusions with specialy developed teflon sliding mechanisms. Visually the aluminium “flower-joint “ symbolizes in a poetic way the connection of two or four drawers and provides an explanation
for the endless modularity.

for Magis, Italy 2001

cube
The system consists of separate chests of drawers in two widths, three depths and four heights, designed for stacking or positioning alongside each other. Open compartments and closed units, such as drawers, flaps and rotating or swivel doors suggest multiple combinations for individual lifestyle needs. “cube” deliberately forfeits dominant design details in favour of clean lines and systematic architecture. One special detail: “cube” can be opened in various
directions. Each individual chest of drawers can be operated from different angles, in other words, it can be turned through 90° or 180° to permit access from all sides. Since the market introduction it became right away one of the most successful storage furniture in the design market.

for interlübke, Germany 2003

mesh
Inspired by a macrozoom picture of a vegetal leaf relief structures the modules are designed to generate organic tree-like structures. Added to one another, the translucent and osmotic modular structure divides open architectural spaces or creates subspaces without a complete opaque separation. The textiles are knitted and three-dimensionaly shaped in a hightech procedure to form lightweight, buttressed combs that can be added endlessly to form walls, spaceshells, screens or tunnels. Materialwise the mesh-knitting structure is a technological evolution: The fibers of the mesh are partly made from adhesive fibers which under heat blend into a stiff textile microstructure.

textile experiments at studio aisslinger, Berlin 2007

hemp-modules
The “hemp-modules” are new hightech moulded structural elements made of natural fibers – this technological evolution is part of the near future of the construction sector and part of a vision of sustainable homes built with the these hemp-eco-bricks. The modules can be added up endlessly into iterative wave like wallstructures facades or horizontal levels. This new technology used for the “hemp modules” allows to use 100 % natural fibers in combination with a water based glue without any phenols or
formaldehyd. The industrial production process enables a low cost mass production for 3D objects with a high stability and a low specific weight.

cooperation and friendly support:
BASF acrodur, Germany 2011

ADD
The system works like a construction kit providing unlimited options for configurations and features an innovative joint design which took 5 years to be developped: the intelligent plastic node (patent pending) brings with it two major advantages: first it seamlessly connects the timber profiles to form a structural frame, hiding the joint within the node itself. Second, it introduces a new and simple installation technique, in which the nodes feature fasteners that simply clip onto and off other elements such as front, side and back panels. Elements can easily be changed or added at any time. ADD is a system that can be modified and extended according to the user’s ideas and needs.

for Flötotto, Germany 2013

loungechair DS 144
The creation of a new archetype among the existing loungechairs is a challenging mission. Designing the DS 144 was mostly about synchronising the high-end leather manufacturing standard of de Sede with a very crystallinie and streamlined design language as well as new moulding technologies to arrive at the thin but comfortable construction. Loungechairs always have a extremely sculptural appearance but at the same time are designed for a long visual halflife period.

for de Sede, Switzerland 2013

juli chair
Starting the profession the “Juli Chair” was Werner Aisslingers second important industrial design product. In 1995 he spend some weeks during the summer to build a 1/1 scale mould for the later fiberglas-prototype-seatshell. The final prototype he drove down to Cappellini to see what Giulio Cappellini might say – luckily at the time Cappellini was in contact with a Lancia automotive supplier and together the idea came up to transform the fiberglas prototype into the first chair ever using polyurethan integral foam for a seatshell. This very first soft synthetic shell chair was a sensation on the 1996 salone di mobile and consequently in 1998 became part of the permanent collection of the Modern Museum of Art in New York, the first German chair design since 1964 and is still in production.

for Cappellini, Italy 1996

loftcube
The loftcube project was inspired by the vision of rooftop communities inhabited by urban nomads as most flat roofs of high-rise city buildings in urban zones could be used as a space for temporary living. The Loftcube is designed to be airlifted to those roofs by helicopter, or it can be dismantled and reassembled atop buildings by a crew of only a few people. The “parasite” structure – using and connecting to the existing housing technology – was initially inspired by the bland, flat roofs of Communist-era apartment buildings in East Berlin with square-kilometers of unused sunny city spaces. Together with Christian Friedrich, who founded the Loftcube GmbH and the Architects Achim Aisslinger and Andreas Bracht from and8office in Hamburg the prototype was transformed from a 1to1scale model into a high-end low energy-smart house which is on the market since 2007. The ongoing interest in the loftcube might be motivated by a classic desire of mankinds subconsciousness : carrying ones personal snail-shell around along your life.

image by Wilhelmy/courtesy of Loftcube GmbH

wallpaper by Vescom

wing chair
This plywood chair is based on an artistic static concept: combining two flat plywood planes which are only connected through a central wooden boomerang shaped spine. The overall shape creates a very light poetic slim and floating figure.

for LEMA, Italy 2012

network edition
The network edition is the amazing transformation of 2-dimensional textile-patterns stitched on fabrics with a resulting 3-dimensional textile pop-up
furniture object. The empirical designproject combines new high technologies applied to traditional stitching techniques with a collection of edited textile objects which are ‘plotted’ onto a carrier by the means of a programmable stitching machine. The 3 dimensional grid raises from the surface as if it was extruded into its third dimension. This new textile 3D-pop-up technology is an empirical research-result developped together with a traditional German manufacturer in Plauen a region
with a long tradition in stitching and embroidery.

experimental edition by studio aisslinger
with Gerber GmbH, Germany

nic chair
The „nic chair“ was 2003 finally in production and was one of the first products ever using the complicated gasinjection/airmoulding production process which is only sucessfully implemented into the market by worldwide 2 companies (one of them is MAGIS) and was a revolution in the world of plastic production. Hollow like bamboo the plastic seat is highly stabile, light and elastic with a minimum of materialinput.

for Magis, Italy 2003

soft chaise
The “soft chaise” was the first industrialized designobject with Gel. This new polyurethane Gel called TecnoGel engineered with a matt self coating film which is sprayed into the mould creates a huge monopad surface. The chaise “soft” became an iconic object and in 2000 it was the second most
published design-object worldwide.

for zanotta, Italy 2000

chairman
The latest seating project “chairman” is based on two ideas: on the one hand using latest materials and technologies and at the same time the challenge to create a timeless basic piece with an archetypal shape and a long half-life.The shell is made of 100% recyclable formfleece-felt a recent developped technology which provides a static seatshell and at the time a soft upholstery comfort.

for Conmoto, Germany 2014

hemp chair
This worldwide first natural monochair designed with a total new technology: Natural fibers like hemp are moulded under heat with a special ecologic glue into a new natural and sustainable composite material. The “hemp-chair” is designed in a tradition of monobloc stackable chairs, which often have been
developped with reinforced plastics at the time they were launched. A complete chair structure done by a thin layer of material is one of the most complicated ways to design and engineer a chair. The “hemp-chair” with its soft curves and horizontal and vertical ring structure is a new approach to this complex seating
typology.

technology support BASF, Germany
Moroso, Italy 2013