Piet piper: Materials come first for Dutch designer

We like Piet’s pipes too, and the thinking behind them. ‘Materials,’ he tells LS:N Global. ‘That’s the starting point for my designs.’

The stand-out works at Hein Eek’s exhibition were Tubes, a chair and bench made from the pipes Hien Eek found in the roof of the former ceramics factory he uses as a shop-workshop-atelier-restaurant in the Netherlands, and Chunky Beam, a chair and bench made from sleeper-sized heavy beams.

‘I take scrap wood because I like the material,’ says Hein Eek. ‘It’s not necessarily because it’s ecological. I just appreciate the materials.’

For more about the importance of materials, read LS:N Global’s comprehensive Milan report, which will be available next week.