Magic Plants

Magic Plants is a project by TOUCH WITH EYES, where designers explore nature—its form, structure, and beauty—through tactile contact. The goal is to discover natural form using classical woodworking techniques, turning the creation of an object into a metaphor for a plant’s growth.
The project is inspired by the story of a design object’s birth, similar to how a plant grows under specific conditions. In this case, it starts with randomly found wood fragments cut by city services along the Adriatic coast. Each fragment becomes a “seed” from which an unknown plant may grow.
Through tactile interaction, designers search for the material’s form and structure. Nature has its own laws: when everything aligns harmoniously, a plant grows strong and beautiful; if not, it does not survive. The same principle applies here—considering the wood’s size, species, knots, and natural imperfections, the final shape emerges.
Handcrafting allows each object to be “grown” meditatively, like a magical plant. We do not aim to outshine nature, but we can strive to come closer to it.

TOUCH WITH EYES is a design duo of Alexander Kanygin and Anna Druzhinina. Traveling Europe in a mobile workshop, they create on the go, inspired by nature and traces of human life. They collect materials from the environment—driftwood, shells, sand molds, buoys, palm branches—and transform them into new forms and functions. Their work lets audiences feel the sea, sun, salt, sand, and earth, blending improvisation with craftsmanship, and connecting design directly to place and memory.