Ride the Lawn: Super Green Bike by Swabdesign

Snapshot: "Come on, to the countryside with the fixie bike SUPER GREEEN. Some wood, some grass (the lawn is regularly mowed of course), the saddle made of natural rubber and cotton, and the wooden crate…Let’s go!!" It's Super Green! Behold Swabdesign's naturalistic bipedal beauty as it soars across the countryside.

Swabdesign, a Paris based design studio mostly known for their stylized modern lighting fixtures and contemporary furniture, has brought forth a bicycle that is truly unique. Whereas the lawn and the bicycle have always been at odds with each other before, they now amalgamate to form a wonderously verdant mode of travel. Though this playful design is intended to match Swabdesign's new line of furniture and fixtures, it holds its own as an original piece of functional art. The bicycle embodies the nostalgia of the comforting beauty of an endless lawn, a quintessential tennis court and a perfect summer day combined.

Here, vintage meets the new in a display that merges the classic fixie bike with an original, tastefully vivid display of green elan.

Though the Bicycle is obviously not made from real grass, the frame is covered in a synthetic flock that resembles the well tended beauty of a pastoral English lawn. The material of the frame itself - a smooth, bright aluminum -  maintains the youthful, vibrant energy of the piece. To top things off, it even comes attached with a miniature figure of a person mowing the lawn to keep the bike's grass perfect and pruned at all times. The flock, wooden accessories and structural design meld together to create a fun, fresh design that makes one (or maybe just me at least) want to ride across a landscape of rolling hills and endless expanses of green into the distant sunset. The bike was created as an effort to both showcase Swabdesign’s new line of product and to discover which wooden accessories for bicycles were already available.

The creation of the bicycle was a collaborative effort between several companies spanning across Europe. The wooden wheels were crafted in Italy, the handles from Spain, the pedals and flock from Germany and the wooden crate had to be custom made for the Super Green bike in Greece. Each of these pieces blend to form a mask of a minimalistic tranquility that the piece seems to radiates.

You can find Super Green on display at the upcoming Maison & Objet (M&O) trade fair, where Swabdesign will be presenting many of their contemporary designs.

Photography courtesy of Swabdesign