Rat Rodding Furniture

While compiling this week’s PSFK design review, we wanted to include one of the most extreme custom cars we’d ever seen as eye candy. The severely chopped 1930 Ford is constructed in the style of a ‘rat rod’. Rat rods appear unfinished but the intention of building a car in this style is to show the idea of function over form. They are partially a reaction to custom cars made to be too pretty and never drove. What turned posting a link about this car into a full story occurred when we saw Design Milk’s report on the furniture being created by one designer from a team known as Men at Work from The Hague.

Dennis Slootweg creates one off furniture pieces that reflect simplicity, employ raw materials, and blur the boundary between industrial fabrication and craft. He presented new work at this past Salone del Mobile in Milan where lots of other shiny sleek furniture prototypes shared the spotlight. Slootweg’s work though carried one of his favorite finishes, metal rusted to perfection. In particular, his ‘Rust Cupboards’ are designed to be functional and practical. The designs manage to transform rough metal into furniture pieces that have an expressive character and seemingly a story to tell. Qualities not far removed from what rat rodders aim to accomplish.

[via chromjuwelen and design milk]