Tag Archives: Bench

Stool has tree shadows printed on top to bring you closer to nature

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Before I started focusing on writing for design, I never really paid attention to how mostly functional things like chairs are designed. As long as I could sit on it comfortably on it, then i believed it did its job and I didn’t really need to choose based on how well designed it is. But there are pieces of furniture out there, or even just as a concept, that were really thought of well by the designers to bring something not necessarily new, but at least interesting, to the table. Or in this case, the chair.

Designer: Shota Uruasaki

Capture the Light is one such design for a stool. The furniture itself is not a groundbreaking stool but is made up of the usual three blocks (seat, two legs) connected together by one small block. It looks just like your typical wooden stool/bench that you might see at a park or at a museum. But what makes this different is what you’ll see on the seat itself. You might think there’s a tree nearby casting its shadow but if you’re inside, then that may be a mystery.

It’s actually the unique design that this stool brings. The shadows casted by trees that you may see at parks or public spaces are immortalized on the seats as the designs are printed on them. The designer went around photographing the patterns that these tree shadows make, carrying a white board with them. The photographs were then inkjet printed on top of the stools and so you have the illusion of trees hovering on you as you sit on them.

It’s a simple design addition to your regular stool/bench but it’s interesting, if you’re into nature and trees. Even if the stool is inside, you get the illusion of still being surrounded by trees because of the shadows. Of course it’s still best to actually be around trees but in cases where you can’t then this stool may be the next best thing.

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The Humble Origata Collection Is Inspired By The Fascinating Art Of Kimono Making

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A minimal and beautifully designed piece of furniture can truly make a room come full circle. It can be the final piece that completes a space, building a comfortable and cohesive haven, rather than a random area. Furniture pieces make or break a home, they add to the essence or soul of a home, hence one needs to be extremely picky while choosing a furniture design. The design should be a reflection of you, and what you want your home to be. When you place a piece of furniture in a room, it should instantly integrate with the space, creating a wholesome and organic environment. And, a minimal furniture collection that would be an amazing addition to your home is the Origata collection by Nao Tamura for Porro.

Designer: Nao Tamura for Porro

Designed by New York-based Japanese designer Nao Tamura, the Origata collection includes the Origata bench and console. They’re inspired by the intricate craft of Kimono making and were designed for the Italian furniture brand Porro. The furniture pieces are crafted from aluminum sheet material, which has been cut and assembled using techniques inspired by the art of kimono making, in which fabric is cut in straight lines, and then artfully sewn together.

This unique technique produces almost zero waste, which is why Tamura employed this clever process, since it maximizes material use, in turn boosting the production of his collection. Both the Origata bench and console feature the same essential shape – a sturdy geometric form that has a softness to it, owing to its cultural influences, and craft-related inspiration.

The beautiful pieces represent and showcase Porro and Tamura’s shared values which include cultural identity, internationality, and a genuine respect and admiration for materials. The various pieces make an excellent fit for entryways, waiting rooms, or even bedrooms. They are versatile furniture designs that can also be employed and placed in areas for work, writing, and meditation. Where would you want to place these pieces?

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Modular cork stool concept offers sustainable seating by turning into a bench

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Sitting is an important part of our daily lives, so it’s not unusual to see different kinds of seating furniture around places where people stay or pass through. Unfortunately, it’s hard to predict when you’d need a single chair or a multi-person bench, so spaces tend to either put multiple chairs together or have a few benches and force people to sit together. That strategy does work, at least until the situation changes and you need to change seats, which often means buying new seats and discarding the old ones. This minimalist stool concept tries to offer a more sustainable solution that helps reduce waste by turning two stools into a single bench and back again, depending on the need.

Designers: Erika Avery, Stu Cole

The requirements for a stool, chair, or bench are pretty simple. At the very least, it needs to be stable enough to support the weight of a human person sitting on it without toppling over or collapsing. Comfort is, of course, ideal, but some designs seem to forego that in exchange for other capabilities. It’s arguable that the “unknown” stool concept is one of these designs, though its modular nature leaves that open to interpretation and implementation.

The core element of this concept is the sturdy column made of cork, a sustainable and easily acquired material. It’s a single cylinder that makes up the center of the stool, but its secret lies in a smaller circle that connects to a removable seat with a hole in its center. It’s a simple system that requires no screws, extra parts, or complex mechanisms, which means maintenance, repair, and replacement will be just as simple as well.

That seat can, in theory, be anything, though the simple shapes of a square and a circle immediately come to mind. However, that doesn’t limit it to a single symmetrical shape either, since you can have a long rectangular seat with holes on each end, forming a bench when set on top of two cork columns. In fact, the design of the actual furniture is determined by the shape of that removable seat, and it can be as simple or as complex as needed.

The concept doesn’t exactly define what the seat has to be made of, so it can use wood, metal, plastic, or any other material. It can be bare or it can have some cushioning or upholstery to add a bit of comfort. More importantly, the seats can be changed, repaired, or replaced without throwing away the cork core, or vice versa. It’s a simple yet effective design that limits the waste of fixed chairs and stools while leaving the door open for combinations that deliver what’s needed at any given time.

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This aluminum bench stands on the shoulders of discarded Mac Pro cases

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Apple is not a big fan of reusing its products for something else, at least something that is still close to the original function of the design. It probably won’t object to completely unrelated applications of those designs, especially when it’s for a creative and artistic purpose. The non-functional parts of an iPhone, for example, could be disassembled and framed to be displayed as a piece of tech history. Or one might simply take the empty shells of old Mac Pro and turn them into a piece of structural art, which is exactly what this rather striking metal bench tries to accomplish in a way that will probably make you wonder how strong those old Apple desktops might have been.

Designers: Quinner Baird, Alec Alborg, Ferb Liebana, Berit Levy, Jaime Uriarte (Caliper)

The designs for more recent Mac Pros have been rather controversial, to say the least. The cylindrical 2013 was derided for looking like a trash can, while the boxy 2019 design, though a bit more traditional, is jokingly called a cheese grater. Neither are good foundations for a stable piece of furniture, but the first-ever Mac Pro fortunately fits the bill perfectly. It was a minimalist brushed aluminum box with tapered legs on the front and back to raise it up and equally tapered handles on those same sides for easier lifting.

Made for Manhattan clothing brand Hidden as part of store display, the Mac Pro Bench is exactly what it sounds like. It takes two first-gen Mac Pros, totally gutted of any and all electronic components, and has a folded aluminum plank attached on top. The plan has a tapered shape that fits perfectly between the front and back handles, making it feel as if the desktops were made for this very purpose. Two versions of the bench exist, one preserving the brushed aluminum aesthetic of the Mac Pro, and another thoroughly coated in Hidden’s green motif.

It’s not being sold en masse, which will probably keep Apple’s lawyers happy, though there are also ways to make your own. That said, it’s probably not a good idea outside of making it a decorative piece. It’s actually not tested how much weight the Mac Pros will be able to handle, especially with a bench meant to sit more than one person. The hollow legs of the desktop don’t look reassuring either, and it might have been more practical to have sawed those off, even if it meant ruining the original Mac Pro shape.

That said, it’s possible to reinforce the foundations of the Mac Pro Bench to make it a more usable piece of furniture. More importantly, however, the piece of art could also spark the imagination and creativity of others to make similar designs that reuse discarded desktop PCs in a less conventional and more interesting manner.

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This Minimal & Multifunctional Furniture Piece Serves As A Bench & A Shoe Rack

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Wood has been the material of choice for furniture designers for ages galore. And no wonder! There’s something about wood that instantly adds a sense of zen and calm to any living space it is placed into. It puts your mind at ease while managing to radiate a feeling of warmth and tranquility. It’s a minimal material that holds a strong personality without any additional frills and tassels. I truly believe a well-crafted piece of wooden furniture can add a magical touch to even the simplest of living spaces. Minimal, clean, and almost always soothing, beautifully designed wooden furniture helps add the ultimate finishing touch to a room. And, one such furniture design is ‘Tokyo’ by Teixeira Design Studio.

Designer: Teixeira Design Studio

I’m sure you’ve come across Teixeira’s designs on Instagram. They’re always minimal, well-designed, and highly functional. They instantly catch your eye with their sheer simplicity yet excellent utility. And Tokyo is no exception. Tokyo is an ingenious multifunctional design that merges a shoe rack and a bench. It artfully combines two furniture pieces into one individual furniture piece, providing dual functionality while occupying less space.

What makes Tokyo unique and special is its side leg, which gently and seamlessly curves, subtly embracing the cushion to create a top tray for daily essentials. This functions as a neat spot to store your souvenirs and other knick knacks. The furniture piece also features a bottom shelf which also serves as a nifty storage space. You can display and store whichever items you please. There is sufficient space to hold all your shoes and serve as a full shoe rack as well, or as a hybrid solution that accommodates your shoes as well as your books and bags.

While designing and creating Tokyo, the designer felt that the form and geometry of the furniture piece reminded him of Japanese architecture, and hence he named it Tokyo. All in all, Tokyo is a minimal and well-designed furniture piece with dual functionality that makes it a great addition to modern homes and contemporary living spaces.

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This wooden shoe rack doubles as a bench and a tray for transient bodies and objects

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A lot of the clutter and missing items in our homes are caused by having no proper place to put our stuff. Whether they’re keys or shoes, small objects can lead to big messes when left anywhere and everywhere. Sometimes, it’s not enough just to have a place to put them; you also have to be smart in where you actually place these objects’ homes. Things that you take with you outside but not indoors are often best left near the door, but that space might not always be the best location for shelves. This design concept offers a rather elegant solution to this multi-layer problem, providing a more permanent fixture for temporary things like shoes, keys, earbuds, and even your own tired body.

Designer: Joao Teixeira

Shoe racks are not an uncommon sight inside houses, apartments, and living spaces. More often than not, their placed by the door to make it easy to put shoes on when leaving and have a convenient spot to leave them after you’ve taken them off. Due to the space these pieces of furniture occupy, however, they usually serve a single purpose only and have almost no other use except for shoe storage. It’s practically wasted space, especially if you don’t have that many shoes there to begin with.

Inspired by traditional Japanese architecture like torii gates, “Tokyo” is a shoe rack that goes above and beyond the call of duty, at least if you want it to. It actually serves two other functions in addition to holding your shoes. The cushioned top serves as a comfy bench, perfect for when you need to sit down to take a breather or put on shoes. There is a small tray on one side that lets you put down your phone, keys, and other knick-knacks for a while. Given the multi-functional design of the concept, it’s something that can easily be placed near the door or against any wall. Yes, it will take up a length of space, but you’re getting three for the price of one.

What’s even more impressive is how this design implements those three functions in a beautifully minimalist manner. Like many of Joao Teixeira’s furniture concepts, it involves using bent planks of plywood to achieve simple yet sophisticated-looking forms. In this case, the two legs are bent at opposite angles, but one of them extends upward and curves embrace the cushion, creating a completely flat and solid surface to act as a temporary holding area for small objects. Structural support is provided by a pseudo three-centered arch, also made from bent plywood, that creates a shelf for larger things.

Admittedly, Tokyo hardly looks like any typical shoe rack, which makes it an ideal piece of furniture to place anywhere. The large empty space at the bottom can be home for taller shoes and boots, while the shelf can hold sandals, loafers, sneakers, and similar footwear. Of course, it could also be used to hide books, foldable umbrellas, or other things you might want to quickly grab before you rush out the door. Either way, this shoe rack and bench in one provides a convenient and charming place for shoes and small items, not to mention a comfortable way to catch your breath after coming back home.

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Rotating bench “spins ever so slowly” using solar energy

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In one of the fiction books that I read lately, one of the projects that this girl was trying to do was to propose an eco-friendly amusement park with some of the rides using solar energy and most of the materials to be used are from recycled or sustainable materials. It was a pretty good idea although I thought maybe in the real world this was something not that viable. Well we still don’t have one but there is a new art installation that might fit in with that fictional amusement park.

Designer: ENESS

This permanent outdoor installation is called A Solar-Powered Bench That Spins Ever So Slowly and the name is also the actual description of this idea. It is a circular bench shaped like a flower if viewed from above and depending on how strong the sun is, it will spin around either ever so slowly or a bit faster if the sun is out in full force. It is a clever idea for something that is functional, decorative, and of course, sustainable.

The bench is actually made from custom solar panels and rotomolded with low-density polyethelene (LDPE) and recycled plastic. It stores sunlight into the panels and when it is sunny, it will spin faster (although not fast enough to make anyone dizzy) and on cloudy days, then it will live up to its name as it spins ever so slowly. The design itself follows mid-century modern furniture and if you view it from above, it looks like you have a garden of flowers in pastel colors spinning in the midst of an actual garden.

The concept is meant for people to interact with the benches and to have a different perspective of public space. People are meant to relax while it spins or have conversations with other people sitting on the bench or the one across. It would be nice if it could be replicated in other places where solar power is a viable energy source and places where there are a lot of relaxing, public spaces.

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Repurposed Bricks find a new home with this round bench at historic London wharf

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Benches are something that you normally don’t notice except when you need somewhere to sit on. And even then, you don’t really choose something based on its looks. As long as you can sit on it and it’s a bit comfortable, then it has served its purpose. But there are also times when you notice well-designed ones that seem to fit in well with its surroundings even though you don’t really need somewhere to sit on.

Designer: Akasaki Vanhuyse

FLOAT is a bench that you may not immediately notice that it’s actually a bench but it is. It blends in well with the maritime atmosphere at the historic Royal Albert Wharf in London. It actually looks like it’s just a piece of decoration placed in the docks but you can sit on it like you would lie on a lifesaver floating on the water. Well, except this one will not actually float you off somewhere despite its name.

The bench has a rounded geometry but with a brick-like design. It’s actually made from traditional handmade clay bricks that are stacked on top of each other. The design is reminiscent of the brick buildings found on docks with the curved shape of the bench inspired by the wharf edge. The idea for this bench is that people should be interested in approaching it and eventually sitting or reclining on it while enjoying the view from the wharf.

I’m not sure how comfortable the Float bench will be given that it’s made from bricks and its rounded shape. I guess it also depends how your butt fits into the hole or if you actually won’t fall into it. But it’s an interesting piece of furniture to be part of a historic wharf. Hopefully people will sit on it and not throw things into the hole (as some will be tempted to do so).

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Meet the Tellus Bench, “the world’s first” furniture made from fossil-free steel

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Street furniture brand Vestre and designer Emma Olbers have designed a unique and innovative piece of furniture called the Tellus Bench using fossil-free steel, produced without creating carbon emissions. Swedish steelmaker SSAB forged the steel used to build the Tellus Bench in its converted blast furnace, which utilizes green hydrogen instead of coal for heat, and hence it emits no carbon dioxide.

Designer: Vestre and Emma Olbers

Vestre intends to be recognized as the world’s most sustainable furniture company and claims that it is the first furniture manufacturer in the world to use fossil-free steel. Vestre uses steel to slash carbon emissions. “Early estimates show that converting all our steel to fossil-free could reduce our overall footprint by around 60 percent,” said Vestre chief sustainability officer Øyvind Bjørnstad. Designer Olbers wanted to lower emissions by using as few materials as possible to build the bench. “An outdoor bench for public environments must also withstand a lot of wear and tear,” Olbers said. “We have striven to use as little material as possible but still maintain the strong construction.”

Olbers wanted the bench to have a “metal feel”, while also possessing a welcoming and inviting appeal. The bench is equipped with wide armrests, that provide comfort to the user, while also offering sufficient space to place a coffee or tea cup. The Tellus bench is intended to be used in parks, and other public spaces, and is available in the classic RAL color. The bench is named after one of the alternative names for Planet Earth.

The material used to build the Tellus bench has the same properties as steel, but it is produced via a process called Hydrogen Breakthrough Ironmaking Technology (HYBRIT), during which green hydrogen is burned in the place of coal and coke. The green hydrogen is procured via the electrolysis of water, which splits and partitions the water molecules into hydrogen and oxygen and emits no greenhouse gases at all. The Tellus bench is meant to be the world’s first item of furniture made from fossil-free steel, and we cant wait to see how this innovative design will impact the world of furniture design.

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Versatile indoor/outdoor bench made from recycled aluminum is inspired by the texture of pasta

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I love pasta, and I think most of the general population does, and whoever doesn’t is probably an alien from outer space. Soft chewy carbs that pair perfectly with two of my favorite things on earth – cheese, and wine! I mean, come on, pasta is quite literally perfection. And I guess Norwegian designer Lars Beller Fjetland had the same opinion because pasta is the inspiration for his newest furniture design – the Bello! bench.

Designer: Lars Beller Fjetland for Hydro

Fjetland designed the Bello! bench for the aluminum producer Hydro. And what was his muse for this piece? You got it right – pasta, or to be more precise penne rigate! Informed by the design and form of pasta, the Bello! bench is a versatile piece of furniture that can be used indoors and outdoors. It’s been created from nearly ninety percent recycled and hundred percent recyclable aluminum.

Fjetland was inspired by a piece of penne rigate, which is responsible for the ridged and textured surface of Bello! “The subtle ridges add so much value – you just have to run your fingers across the surface. These tactile discoveries mean so much to me,” said the designer. Aluminum extrusion was used to produce the bench, a process that involves the heating of metal through a hole, that is shaped in the desired form. The process is quite similar to the way pasta shapes are created!

“With this design, I really wanted to emphasize the possibilities of extruded aluminum. It is very much a culmination of everything I appreciate – from the planes, trains, and buses that were designed in the 1930s–1970s, to brutalist architecture and, last but not least, pasta,” said Fjetland. Since aluminum was the material of choice for Bello!, this instantly makes the bench sturdy, strong, and durable and not to mention lightweight. It can be used in places with high traffic such as public transportation hubs. It can be customized and modified to incorporate tables, lamps, or chargers since it does not have an internal support structure. The bench is not available currently, but it will be released at Norway’s annual Milan design week showcase, so keep an eye out for it!

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