Titan Lounger Ice Acrylic
Project: Titan Lounger – Ice Acrylic
Designer: Batten and Kamp
Location: Hong Kong
Type: Furniture / Sculptural Seating
Titan Lounger Ice Acrylic by Batten and Kamp is a study in contrasts where the fluid precision of engineered materials collides with the raw, unyielding nature of stone. Made from recycled acrylic and aurazina marble, the lounger explores a dynamic interplay between transparency and density, weightlessness and gravity, control and chaos. The crystalline acrylic, bent into a seamless, flowing form, feels almost otherworldly like an artifact of the future while the fractured marble base, reminiscent of ancient terrain, acts as an anchor to deep time. These elements are bound together with industrial-grade metal clamps that grip the stone like an exoskeletal frame, fusing synthetic and organic in a kind of surgical intervention. This push and pull between technological precision and natural imperfection reflects Batten and Kamp’s ongoing investigation into material hybridity, progress, and the evolving intersection of design, science fiction, and prehistory.
The lounger’s form is reduced to a gesture clean, continuous, and intuitive. A single ribbon of translucent acrylic folds and extends in a controlled sequence of inclines and angles, mapping the silhouette of a reclining human body. Yet despite its minimalism, the form carries a certain audacity. Its precision and clarity give it the appearance of a sculptural vision made real emerging from thought to form with absolute intent, untouched by hesitation or excess. The edges are softened just enough to temper the geometry, while the surface remains subtly matte diffusing light rather than reflecting it. This finish avoids the sterile sheen of high-gloss acrylic and instead offers something softer, quieter, almost like ice. The result is an object that disappears and asserts itself simultaneously, its presence defined not by mass but by its effect on the space around it.
In stark opposition sits the base an irregular block of aurazina marble, rough-hewn and unapologetically primal. Its surface retains the traces of extraction and fracture, a reminder of its geological origin. Unlike the controlled curvature of the acrylic, the marble resists human intervention, refusing refinement. This contrast is not just aesthetic it is symbolic. Where the acrylic hovers between future artifact and speculative fiction, the stone is resolutely ancient, as if pulled from a forgotten ruin. What bridges the two is not glue or invisibility, but exposure: a set of visible mechanical clamps that embrace the acrylic and puncture the stone. These components don’t conceal their purpose, they’re revealed with intent, precise and unapologetic, like structural joints in a body or exposed architecture in a building. In doing so, Batten and Kamp underscore the tension between what is found and what is made, what is natural and what is designed.
Together, these materials form a body one that is part tool, part sculpture, part fossil. The lounger does not invite comfort in a traditional sense; it provokes contemplation. Its usability is secondary to its presence, a reminder that design can be both functional and philosophical. Every element is intentional: the balance of weight, the choreography of connection, the visibility of the joinery. It is this refusal to resolve into one thing chair or sculpture, artifact or machine that makes it so compelling. Batten and Kamp are not merely designing an object; they are staging a collision of narratives: the post-industrial and the prehistoric, the smooth and the scarred, the ephemeral and the eternal. Titan Lounger Ice Acrylic is not just a seat it’s a suspended moment in material evolution.