The Savannah College of Art and Design's furniture design department has teamed up with C.H. Briggs to create product designs that explore the unique material qualities of Corian. SCAD M.F.A. furniture design student Matt Gray of Dallas, Texas, created the Bench Rack, a bench-and-bicycle rack that uses DuPont Corian Solid Surface. The Bench Rack made its debut in the SCAD booth at NeoCon 2011 last month.
In the collaboration between SCAD and C.H. Briggs, students worked on designs that could incorporate Corian into furniture objects geared to specific industries and capitalizing on the material's unique thermoformable and renewable qualities-the material can be shaped, bent and formed, unlike polyester-based solid surfaces, and it can be brought back to its original beauty if scratches or marks occur.
For Bench Rack, Gray looked to create a design that brought convenience, comfort and safety to today's commuter and envisioned the use of Corian as a way to redefine the public transportation experience. The result is an innovative multi-use product that addresses the need of public transportation systems to accommodate the growing trend of bicycle commuters. The design was fabricated locally in the Savannah area for the NeoCon debut by Surface Solutions in Garden City, Georgia.
"We are thrilled to collaborate with Savannah College of Art and Design and to introduce Corian as a multidimensional design material to the student design community," said Luis Arias, chief marketing officer for C.H. Briggs. "Students have experienced the unlimited design possibilities of Corian, from the smart palette and malleability to the craftsmanship associated with fabrication."