SABINE MARCELIS PRESENTS SWIVEL IN COLLABORATION WITH SOLIDNATURE AT LONDON DESIGN FESTIVAL

For the London Design Festival, SolidNature and Sabine Marcelis celebrate materiality and movement with Swivel, the event’s Landmark Project and outdoor installation of playful seatings on show in St. Giles Square.

London, 20 September 2022 - Natural stone brand SolidNature continues its collaboration with acclaimed Dutch designer Sabine Marcelis for Swivel.

Swivel, commissioned on the occasion of the London Design Festival’s 20th Anniversary and supported by Almacantar is this year’s event Landmark Project. Located at St. Giles Square, a vibrant space in one of central London’s most traversed neighbourhoods, the installation is a long-term public installation that celebrates materiality and movement encouraging visitors to come together in the space.

Upon entering the square, visitors will be taken away by the vibrant colours and fresh lines of the scattered movable chairs Sabine Marcelis designed for this site specific installation. Bringing together colour and interactivity, this area of London is a place for transition: from underground train links to performance venues; from historical sites to experiential food halls.

Known for her work in product, installation and spatial design, with a strong focus on materiality, research and experimentation, Sabine Marcelis’ designs are often viewed as experiences and encourage interchange between an object and its user. For Swivel, Marcelis has been able to freely play with the vast array of natural stones SolidNature has to offer.

Mermaid and Sunset Dune, Chess Fusion and Pistachio, but also Starry Night and Arctic Henna are only a few of the beautiful selection of material combinations chosen by Marcelis for the Landmark Project. Hand picked from SolidNature’s range of granites, quartzites, marbles and travertines, the natural stones perfectly complement the tones that characterise London’s warm summers and frisky winters while at the same time challenging the perception of gravity as they stand on a single support that can be slowly turned by visitors.

Following the requirement of durability, Swivel is a celebration of materiality and movement, inviting visitors to experience how SolidNature’s natural stone patterns and hues play in juxtaposition with the surrounding brutalist, man-made, glass and concrete structures.

“This project, as with most of my work, is a celebration of materials. I wanted to respond to the space by injecting a bit of colour and fun into this urban environment. Deliberately choosing a natural material in a range of colours, I wanted to create a strong contrast with the surrounding architecture and the manmade material palette. Being an interactive piece, it welcomes audiences to decide how they would like to experience the space. It could encourage strangers to interact with each other, for friends to sit together or even allow people to create a moment of pause for themselves.” ​ Sabine Marcelis, Designer

“We are so delighted to continue our ongoing collaboration with Sabine who, for this project, has selected to work with a wider range of natural stones, viering away from her preferred Onyx. The materials chosen such as marbles, granits and quartzes are more suited to sustain longer periods of time outdoors and the colour contrasts complement Sabine’s design beautifully.” ​ David Mahyari, CEO, SolidNature

Swivel is a large-scale public seating scheme which will remain in situ until November 2022. The seating will remain on the estate to be enjoyed by Londoners throughout the seasons.

NOTES TO THE EDITORS

Swivel

London Design Festival Landmark Project

17-25 September 2022

Open to the public, no ticket required

Centre Point

St. Giles Square

London WC2H 8NH