Swedish designer Jonatan Nilsson built his own machine from sheet metal and wooden blocks to create this Shifting Shape collection of glass vases, which feature jagged edges and rippled surfaces.
After failing to find a flexible-enough mould for glassblowing, Nilsson put together his own machine to create each vase in the Shifting Shape collection.
The Stockholm-based designer used a band saw to cut shapes into wooden blocks, before stacking them up in different formations in two piles and securing them to the sheet metal structure on either side.
Different pieces of wood can be fastened to the metal sheets to offer varied results, as the wooden shapes give the vases their finished form.
Jonatan Nilsson built his own machine from sheet metal and wooden blocks The machine's doors move on hinges, allowing the user to slide the wooden shapes back and forth. Once the doors are closed, the wooden blocks are pushed together, but a hollow space is left in-between each stack.
It is this gap that the hot mass of glass is inserted into and blown. The designer worked with an experienced glass-blower to create the final products.
Blocks of wood cut with different shapes create unique vase forms
Some boast jagged, serrated edges while others have stepped or wave-shaped sides. The front and back of each vessel is flat, and features a soft rippled texture that, coincidentally, looks like the imprint of natural wood grain.
This effect, however, is the result of the glass being blown agains...