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Projectreport: Cooloo

Resource

Duration: 17.12.19 - 10.1.20

Product: CooLoo is a Dutch company that is focussing on the development and production of coatings for furniture design. With their polyurethane based technique, CooLoo can seamlessly coat any material in any shape and size. Their sustainable coatings consist of by- products of the leather and cork industry.

By- product: When they are spraying their coats onto objects in the coating room, a lot of dust is generated that settles on the walls and floor. It is creating a unique passively produced coat with a lot of depth.

Contribution

Inspiration: During the coating production of the four Di Napoli foam seatings, the coating booth inspired me with its ever- changing and divers surfaces. The color gradients and the grown polyurethane structures were just beautiful.

Organisation: Since I was already in productive and likeminded contact with Cooloo, persuading them to leave a chair in the coating booth for some time was no a big deal.

Potentials: The advantage of this process is, that the chair is coating itself, just by existing in this special environment. The use of Cooloo's By- product does not need any further work input. As long as daily production can be guaranteed, passively coating will remain possible.

Challenges: -

Goal: The aim was to let the artificial coating grow "naturally" on the chair

Production: This chair was welded from scrap material from the metal workshop at KISD and was then left behind in the coating booth for a month. During the actual coating process at Cooloo, the nozzle of the spray gun needs to be tested before appliance. Usually, this happens by shooting a few test shots of polyurethane onto the walls of the booth. I asked the craftsmen to execute these test onto the direction of the chair, so the passive coat is growing faster.

Contemplation

Reflexion: The result looked way better then I expected. Because of the various executed coating commissions, the color layering created a depth exactly matching the walls of the booth. Unfortunately, the passively applied coat is not as rigid as planed. Since the layer is almost 5mm think, the coating on the thin expanded metal sheet bars is a little bit fragile but not crumbling off. Next time I would use a closed surface the seat and the backrest.