Enzo Mari

The Modern Primitive’s Guide to Starting a Fire without Matches

Italian industrial designer Francesco Faccin, who teaches about “objectness/project making”, made a beautiful little video of the “bow drill”, a device he designed to start a fire manually, using the principle of rubbing two sticks together. “…a beech spindle is rotated within pre-formed holes in a board made from linden wood…The user kneels on the board to…

6 Novel Approaches to a Non-Working Fireplace

When we saw “non-working” fireplace listed in real estate ads, we used to think “What good is that?”. Then we lost our space with a working fireplace and took the mantle with us; we realized just how great a non-working fireplace i.e. a mantle, can be. Depending on what it looks like and how it…

Enzo Mari Fireplace Inspiration (A Mantle as Display)

Enzo Mari’s fireplace rolls all sorts of things we love into one: a fireplace, slabs of concrete or stone, shelves and ledges to display still lives —perhaps one of the nicest use of a mantle. Our own yellow mantle acts as a repository of things we love. It’s been getting pretty full lately; a friend suggested placing a smaller mantle inside it.

max lamb’s DIM shelving built from hardware store finds

Ever since seeing designer Max Lamb‘s polystyrene bookcases, we’ve been huge fans of his work. He loves making things and lends an artist’s eye to fine craftman’s projects, documenting each step of his process to share on his website. We’ve learned a huge amount from looking at Lamb’s projects, many of which are do-able by…

Autoprogettazione Bed #2 by Justin Beal is made of pine, cloth mattress, beet juice

enzo mari’s autoprogettazione for diy furniture designs

Autoprogettazione, roughly translated “self design,” was a project and book by the modernist artist and designer Enzo Mari that gives instructions for building easy-to-assemble furniture — tables, chairs, bookshelves, wardrobe — using rough boards and nails. Originally published in 1974, it has been reprinted many times. Mari created the project because he thought …if people were encouraged to…

bang out a chair! (marjin van der poll’s do hit chair)

We find something incredibly compelling about Marjin Van der Poll‘s Do hit chair: hammering a chair out of a metal cube with all one’s strength, testing it out, and then pounding and hammering and testing over and over until it takes shape. The cube is smashed full force with a hammer, until it becomes… something…