Design studio Based Upon crafts the dramatic and divine beauty of nature

Natural design

Nature is perpetual creative inspiration to all, an infinite well of stimulus that produces some of the most astounding designs. Drawing from the drama and the divine of the natural world, London studio Based Upon has crafted two very intriguing new designs that is sure to stimulate conversation as the centrepiece of any room.

First, the drama. Ostensibly a coffee table, Fragmented Crack is more of an art installation masquerading as furniture. A square is broken up into three fissured individual pieces, each cast in bronze, representing the constant upheaval of land beneath the earth’s crusts where tectonic plates collide and combine to continuously create new landforms. The casts themselves were made from cracked clay houses at the source of the White Nile river, adding an element of rawness to the studio work that speaks of geographical turmoil and artistic representation; while still being a perfect place to place a flute of bubbly on.

Then, the divine. The Baby grand piano is based on the Golden Spiral, a visual representation of the Golden Ratio used extensively in art and found naturally and omnipresently across our universe, from a tiny floret on a Romanesco Broccoli to the incandescent swirl of star-studded galaxies. Known as the divine proportion in mathematics, the Golden Spiral is depicted in the curves of the piano, a twisting sculptural form where a tri-oval top elevates to reveal a baby grand piano made of polyurethane foam, glass fibre and bronze. The hand-crafted Tranazite top itself is a reference to nature, reflecting Based Upon’s studies of the oscillating, chiasmic aesthetic of Earth.

Based Upon