Day 15/365 of Steel – Ron Arad

Today a post on a creative jack-of-all-trades, born in Tel Aviv on 24 April 1951. Arad is an industrial designer, artist, and architectural designer.

Arad’s career as a designer began with the Rover chair, a leather car seat of a Rover P6 anchored on a tubular steel frame.

Ron Arad’s subsequent and tireless experimentation with the possibilities of materials and technology, and his radical re-conception of the form and structure of objects large and small has put him at the forefront of contemporary design and architecture.
Ron Arad has designed for a whole range of major international furniture and design brands. Under Arad’s direction the architectural side of the practice has completed award winning projects such as the Design Museum Holon in Israel (where he used larges ‘sculpted’ ribbons of COR-TEN steel) and the Mediacite retail censtre in Liège.

Mediacité Liège

The 350 metre long mall weaves through the fabric of the refurbished old market centre at one end, through the new two storey building, connecting to the new Belgian national television centre at the other. The design of the roof unites these elements with a complex network of steel roof ribs that undulate through the mall. The lattice of steel sculpts the volume of the mall beneath, varying both in height and structural depth to form a variety of differing experiences. As the structure exits the volume of the main building, the steel ribs wrap downwards, merging into the façade and forming the building’s envelope. The structure is entirely free-spanning along its length and width, with 200mm wide steel ribs that vary in depth from 300mm to 1200mm, weaving through each other in a deformed grid-like network

(source: Archdaily)

About the Author:

Bruno Dursin – Managing Director at Believe in Steel. Bruno has more than 30 years of experience in promoting steel & steel solutions. His clients benefit from his extensive network within the building industry.

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