Making Furniture with Magnetism
Our crack shot of an Art Director, Jason Babler, sent me a link to this video of Dutch artist Jólan van der Wiel’s Gravity Stool project.
Our crack shot of an Art Director, Jason Babler, sent me a link to this video of Dutch artist Jólan van der Wiel’s Gravity Stool project.
According to the bio on his website, Jólan van der Wiel admires objects which show experimental discovery and are translated into a functional design. His Gravity Stools demonstrate that perfectly. Using a custom magnetic material and a machine with large magnets to stretch the legs off the seat of the stool, he manufactures a product which is “characterized by the freakish and organic shapes that are so typical of nature itself.”
High-temperature superconductor (Yttrium barium copper oxide) floating in the magnetic field of Neodymium magnets. This phenomenon is called the Meißner-Ochsenfeld-Effect and was discovered in 1933. The superconductor has to be cooled with liquid nitrogen which has a temperature of 77 K or −196 °C. If it is placed in a strong magnetic field it remains in its position. It also works if you turn the track upside down