Titled ‘Nuage’ – French for cloud – the Bouroullec brother’s latest collaboration with Vitra is a cloud inspired vase, made of eight aluminium tubes. The shape of the Nuage vases first made an appearance in the Bouroullec’s work in 2002. Reminiscent of a cloud, the concept was originally produced as a plastic shelf module that can be grouped into clusters or large-scale configurations.

Over the years, the Bouroullec brothers have varied this shape and repeatedly incorporated it in their graphic work. For the Nuage vase, the designers executed the cloud motif in extruded aluminium profiles of varying lengths. Each of the cavities are positioned upright, dividing the vase into eight individual tubes. Undulating surfaces, with an anodised finish in various colours, produce an attractive interplay of light and shadow. Thanks to their precise outer contours, the vases can be fitted together to create entire cloud formations.

Nuage made its first appearance earlier this year, in an installation created by the Bouroullecs in homage to the late Zaha Hadid, within a fire station on the Vitra campus in Germany.