Fashion Forward Sponges

(Steel scrubbing sponges turned into a metallic cloud chandelier-Daisuke Hiraiwa)

         Green Design will save our world. So why not join in the fashion forward fun of turning everyday objects into extraordinary pieces for your home? Daisuke Hiraiwa does just this, and uses such creativity and conceptual art of the everyday item theme and transforms them into "green" masterpieces. Hiraiwa uses Sponges as his media to create chandeliers. With his great ethics, as a designer he is a great example of sustainable design can still look fantastic and chic. This example of design, reveals an item that once cleaned the dirty kitchen sink is now transformed into a beautiful chandelier, hi-lighting a sponges form and texture and emphasized by the way the light creates a brilliant sparkle and glow coming from the inside of the fixture.

          Daisuke Hiraiwa keeps a consistent theme and has created numerous chandeliers made of diverse media. Another one of his brilliant pieces is made of recycled plastic spoons. Below, the beautiful continuation of the cascading spoons are accentuated by the light which shines through.

           Looking closely, you can see the added aesthetics of crystal rhinestones on the spoons, meant to resemble that of a chandelier. Also, each spoon has been punctured by tiny holes to allow light to filter through them in breathtaking ways.  He seems to work in negative spaces, and his spoons are strung together into a series that sway and flow, refracting and dispersing the light source. Hiraiwa creatively bridges conceptual art into the realm of green design and creates a gorgeous conversation between the two. So not only does a sponge clean the kitchen, a plastic spoon for a disposable backpack lunch outing, but these everyday objects can be triggered into the design world of artistic appreciation. Soak up every imaginative idea possible like Hiraiwa does and bring the ordinary into the extraordinary.