‘Plastic Baroque Grid Stool’ by James Shaw

This intriguing seating has been designed and made by James Shaw, a renowned contemporary designer and maker. The stool is a part of Shaw’s ‘Plastic Baroque’ series in which he takes inspiration and gives a playful twist to the traditional Baroque imagery.

The stool is made from extruded recycled plastic, which has been reformed to act as a decorative or functional piece of home decor. Shaw has invented a ‘plastic extruding gun’, which utilizes plastic waste, normally thrown away. The gun is filled with plastic pieces in addition to variously coloured dye. Once the plastic and dye combine and feed through the gun, polychrome, soft spaghetti-shaped strings come out, which the designer cuts using scissors. Individual pieces of extruded plastic stick together during the process of cooling down, but the designer needs to hold them in place to ensure they stiffen in the correct shape, adding another step to the time-consuming manufacturing process.

Reminiscent in look to soft materials such as plasticine, the set plastic, interlaced in a carefully thought-through pattern ensures the piece is durable and functional. Boldly coloured in various tones of green ranging from deep green to pale green. The intensity of the colours is decided by how much of the dye is added or left in the extruding gun.

The stool is crafted from long horizontal pieces of plastic held together by multiple shorter strips, creating the illusion of a lace-like pattern.

James Shaw is a graduate of the Royal College of Art, world’s number one art and design university. It is during his studies at the RCA, that he began to create extruding guns, which have become one of the key elements of his output. work is included in the permanent collections of some of the world’s best museums, such as MoMA in New York, Victoria and Albert Museum in London as well as Design Museum Ghent.

Of an unusual and playful design, this stool is both a contemporary piece of furniture as well as a work of art, making it a suitable addition to one’s interior space as a functional or decorative object.