Architects Tobias Wallisser and Chris Bosse designed a lounge for Architonic at the IMM Cologne furnishing fair held earlier this month in Germany.

The lounge was inspired by arctic slabs of ice and provided the setting for a party to celebrate architectural materials database Architonic’s fifth birthday.

Wallisser is formerly a partner at Dutch architects UNStudio while Bosse designed the Aquatic Center for the 2008 Olympic Games in Beijing while working for Australian architects PTW. The two have recently launched a new architectural practice called LAVA.

Photos are by gee-ly. Here’s some text from Architonic:

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At this year‘s imm cologne you are invited to celebrate our fifth anniversary with us. The 100-m2 futuristic Architonic Lounge has been designed by architects Tobias Walliser and Chris Bosse, two outstanding young representatives of contemporary architecture.

Tobias Wallisser is a former partner in the UNStudio and project leader at the Mercedes Benz Museum, while Chris Bosse designed the Aquatic Center in Peking for PTW in Sydney. After major contributions to international projects implemented by prestigious firms of architects, the two have now launched their joint architectural office LAVA and are already involved in large projects in Dubai with PNYG:Company.

The image of an arctic glacier landscape, the reflection of harsh, sharp edges in a darkly gleaming sea of ice was the basis for the idea of an „Arctic Lounge“. Modular furniture, inspired in its basic form by the well-known Escher designs, drift like ice flows – individually or in casual groups, under a canopy of light membranes with atmospheric projections.

The Lounge has been created in international cooperation with the firms of SIX INCH, Belgium, Global Membrane Designs (Australia) and Bertrandt AG, Germany.

Architonic went online in January 2003, punctually on the occasion of the imm cologne. At that year‘s exhibition the founding team around the two architects Nils Becker and Tobias Lutz together with the computer experts Thomas Navello and Dieter Schumann were to be found at a small stand, presenting their vision of architonic.com – their innovative new research portal for architects and designers.

An awful lot has happened since. With an annual 2.76 million visitors Architonic has become the leading international source of reference for high quality products, materials and concepts in architecture and design.