Fernando Laposee’s Beautiful Lufa Collection Goes Far Beyond Your Bathroom Sponge

Posted By Ana Lisa Alperovich On June 4, 2012 @ 4:23 pm In Botanical,carousel showcase,Green Materials,Green Products,Recycling / Compost,Sustainable Food | 1 Comment

• Tweet ^[1]
• Share on Tumblr ^[2]
• Email ^[3]

 

^{[4]  [5]}

Mexican designer Fernando Laposee ^[6]'s latest work is a refreshing collection of home products made from a subtropical fruit called Lufa ^[7]. A graduate from London's Central St. Martins ^[8], Laposee has created a beautiful collection of objects that take advantage of the lightness, translucency, heat insulation, texture, and shock absorptive qualities of the dried fruits. Click through our gallery to discover a room divider, a lamp, a desk, a hot chocolate set, and a series of plant pots made from the biodegradable material.

  ^[5]

Lufa (or Loofah) is a tropical vine that contains a network of xylem fibers commonly used to create natural bath products like sponges. The vine belongs to the Cucurbitaceae ^[9] family, (like squashes, melons and pumpkins), and the fruits can be eaten as fruits ^[10] — popular in Asia and Africa — or dried to make products.

Mexican designer Fernando Laposee has created a collection of household items that make good use of the sponge-like tropical fruit. He created a fantastic room divider for adding some flexibility to interior spaces. Freestanding and flat-pack ^[11], this object was created by cutting and sewing flat pieces of Lufa to a wooden screen.

Laposee also celebrates the fruit’s texture in a desk, where it creates a harmonious contrast with the stark steel that surrounds it. The combination of Lufa and terra-cotta ^[12] in Laposee’s hot-chocolate set is also delightful – we love how the natural materials create visual contrast while taking advantage of the fruit’s insulation properties.

+ Fernando Laposee ^[6]

Via Yatzer ^[13]

Article printed from Inhabitat – Sustainable Design Innovation, Eco Architecture, Green Building: http://inhabitat.com

URL to article: http://inhabitat.com/fernando-laposees-beautiful-lufa-collection-goes-far-beyond-your-bathroom-sponge/

URLs in this post:

[1] Tweet: http://twitter.com/share

[2] Share on Tumblr: http://www.tumblr.com/share

[3] Email: mailto:?subject=http://inhabitat.com/fernando-laposees-beautiful-lufa-collection-goes-far-beyond-your-bathroom-sponge/

[4]

[5]  : http://inhabitat.com/fernando-laposees-beautiful-lufa-collection-goes-far-beyond-your-bathroom-sponge/fernando-laposee-biodegradable-objects-from-lufa-fruit-2/?extend=1

[6] Fernando Laposee: http://www.fernandolaposse.com/

[7] Lufa: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Luffa

[8] Central St. Martins: http://inhabitat.com/photos-the-best-green-designs-at-londons-central-st-martins-university-graduate-show/

[9] Cucurbitaceae: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cucurbitaceae

[10] fruits: http://inhabitat.com/israel-based-solskin-studio-creates-biodegradable-objects-from-orange-skins/

[11] flat-pack: http://inhabitat.com/the-jonofon-is-a-flat-pack-paper-and-wood-gramophone/

[12] terra-cotta: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terra-cotta

[13] Yatzer: http://www.yatzer.com/Loofah-Series-Fernando-Laposee

Click here to print.