Austrian designer Rainer Mutsch has created a modular outdoor furniture collection called Dune for the Austrian concrete products manufacturer Eternit.

“For me Dune was a very demanding project, because it depended on so many parameters: ergonomics, durability, capability of mass production, release properties, statics, modularity, and eco friendliness, to mention only a few. Many prototypes and a lot of research were necessary in order to get the maximum stability out of 3ddeformed fiber cement; eventually, the geometry of the chair supports its stability through its controlled expansion and compression of the material which results in a load-capacity of around 900kg on the seating surface.

Dune visualizes the present material-technical maximum parametres of the fibercement material.The result is a highly stable structure with a load-carrying capacity way over the demanded requirement profile for public spaces. The rainwater flows through a hole in the seating surface to the inside of the loop where it is led directly out of the furniture through the curved bottom surface to dry the furniture as fast as possible.

With Dune I wanted to tell a story about the materials capabilities, the history of the company and the hand formed production method.

The shape of all 5 Dune elements now allows the user to move freely on the objects and to choose an individual seating position according to his or her individual taste. This flexibility guarantees at the one hand maximum comfort for the individual and on the other hand facilitates communication when the elements are arranged in a group. Since Dune has been designed as highly modular and indefinitely expandable system, it fits all spatial situations.

The possibility of the integration of plants offers an additional possibility to create shadow and to further customize the space.”

http://www.contemporist.com/2010/11/23/dune-by-rainer-mutsch-for-eternit/