Rami Bench | Il Hoon Roh

Design Studio IL HOON ROH will present the hand-crafted Rami Series to the public for the first time at the Salone Satellite 2013. Rami, which means "tree branches" in Latin, originated from the designer’s architectural design research on “Non-directional Spatial Skeleton Structure” in 2004. Inspiration for such original research derived from the designer's fascination with the rigidity and lightness of a bird skull which led to his long-term study of lightweight, structurally optimised and efficient designs found in nature which have been formed and tested through the evolutionary process and which strictly follow the principle of “form follows function”. Like the designer’s other designs, the Rami series incorporates such optimsed characteristics of designs found in nature. The designer developed and utilised a string stretching design technique replicating the “form follows function” principle to generate the geometries of the design, weaving a hand-woven carbon fibre string 1.2km (approximately 0.75 mile) long into a three-dimensional form by hand. The resulting shape was not pre-set but allowed to be generated into its final form. The designer also demonstrated the full potential of carbon fibre by creating a design that is several times stronger than steel yet weighs less than 1kg and can be lifted with a finger.