The design works of Ross Lovegrove maintain a trinity between technology, materials science and intelligent organic forms and structures that nature has evolved. Lovegrove likes to push the boundaries of rapidly developing technologies and enjoys the digital age of the 21st century. His passion for form in motion and the embodiment of lightness is clearly reflected in his visionary work.

Ross Lovegrove: ‘Silk in a very advanced composite. It would be like a bi-sex material: natural silk combined with a man-made, really advanced composite. So something natural as a composite and something artificial as a composite. As a textile, that could inform anything that goes from soft to semi-soft to semi-rigid to rigid… Something that would traverse all of that bandwidth.’

… and what material could you immediately reject (also within the time frame of three years)?

Lovegrove: ‘My reflex is to say concrete because of the weight. It’s not about the concrete, it’s about the weight itself. So I would promote anything light, whatever that is. Concrete was invented by the Romans, and I think we need to move on a little bit.’

Here is a selection of further design works by Ross Lovegrove, starting with his most recent projects:

These 3D-printed ladies high heels are part of the collaborative exhibition “Re-Inventing Shoes” by United Nude and 3D Systems that was presented this month during New York Design Week, after its first launch in Milan. Using the highest quality of 3D-printing – Selective Laser Sintering (SLS), an additive manufacturing technique – United Nude have discovered a way to combine harder and softer 3D-printed parts for creating fully functioning shoes made of a hard nylon and all-new soft rubber material.

Lovegrove: ‘We have entered a second renaissance that is like a spaceship moving away from an analogue Earth into a nebula of extraordinary abstract beauty that will lift our psyche to new limits of speculation and biomimetic understanding … closer in fact to our true instinctive view of a non-linear world.’

The complex tridimensional polygon mesh of the “Ilabo” shoe provides a “watertight geometry” whereby nothing is extraneous, either in material volume or functional characteristic.

‘The freedom afforded by the unbridled free-form sculpting of advanced 3D-printing is totally invigorating and emotionally stimulating,’ explains Lovegrove. ‘I have used this project to establish a moment where physical innovation in materials density and layered matrix node structuring are coalesced to enhance the sensuality of the female form whilst remaining clearly technological … Ultimately the shoe has been truncated to extending the perception of verticality and in doing so eliminate weight and mass, which for me is a symbol of decadence.’

Chlorophilia is a highly scenic, yet light suspension appliance that reflects Lovegrove’s signature approach to organic and fluid form. Containing a COB LED, the central cast aluminium body emits indirect light, which is filtered and refracted by clear, gently wavy, leaf-shaped surfaces made of moulded techno-polymer. When switched on, Chlorophilia unveils a contrast of delicate shades generating a scenic effect on the ceiling.

‘It is an installation of optical leaves conceived as a fusion of natural and artificial geometries. The light becomes interactive through caustic projection onto the ceiling, creating a delicate and feminine ethereal space expanding effect.’