Glass Lab
Corning Museum GlassLab

Type

  • Prototypes

We were invited by the Corning Museum of Glass to participate in a GlassLab “design performance”, where we collaborated with glassmakers producing rapid design concepts in a mobile hot glass lab in front of an audience. The venue was the garden of the Cooper Hewitt Design Museum. These are some of the ideas we produced.

One concept is the "Roots" vases. When a flower or plant is cut and put in a vase, the vase becomes its new “soil”. In this project the vase gives a flower new roots, to make it feel grounded and at home. If the vase is empty, the root suggests a future presence of a flower, making us imagine what may appear.

Another concept is the "Lab Glass". The test tube-like vases are based on Masamichi's childhood memory of playing in an abandoned glass factory that used to make scientific equipment.

Having enjoyed the process so much, we did another Glass Lab session a few years later, this time at the Corning Museum's outdoor Glass Lab. We tried two concepts. One is a cup with integrated trellis to grow Morning Glories, the other, Inside-Out, a cylinder transformed into a cup and bowl.

Photos courtesy of The Corning Museum of Glass