Martha Stewart Goes Experimental

Martha Stewart, queen of the creative home, is also a patron of experimental furniture. To offer her huge range of products, Stewart employs an arsenal of designers—a number of whom she culls from the Rhode Island School of Design(RISD). To enhance this relationship, Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia presents Input/Output: Experimental Furniture, an exhibition of RISD student and alumni work from the Departments of Furniture Design, Digital + Media and Textile Design during ICFF in Manhattan’s Starret Lehigh Building.

The projects represent creative reimagining of materials. Technology and form testifies to the school’s talented students—from a table that reacts to pressure, to rocking stools, to animal shaped furniture. Certain pieces are in prototype phases while others are in production like Cucumberlab’s stylish vintage inspired “CL Sound Machine”, a complete sound system with a phonographic bell that doubles as a wine rack. A transitional glass panel on the front reacts through an electronic process and becomes clear as a person approaches and frosts over when they walk away.

If these works are any indication, the future of furniture design lies in interactive technology and emotional relationships to the objects that fill our spaces. Input/Output is open to the public May 20-May 22 at the Starret Lehigh Building, 601 West 26th St, 12 pm-8pm.