Tag Archives: Bench

This Floating Bench Defies Gravity (and Your Expectations)

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Have you ever looked at a mountain peak piercing through clouds and thought, “I want to sit on that”? Well, Miles Hass from Make With Miles did exactly that, and the result is a piece of furniture that looks like it belongs in a modern art museum but would feel right at home in your living room.

The concept is beautifully simple yet wonderfully complex. A massive rock sits at the base, looking like a mountain rising from the floor, while a wooden bench top appears to float right through it. It’s the kind of design that makes you do a double take because your brain can’t quite process what your eyes are seeing. And that’s exactly the point.

Designer: Miles Hass

Miles drew inspiration from that dreamy image of mountaintops emerging from clouds, and somehow translated that ethereal feeling into something you can actually sit on. The execution required heading out to Joshua Tree, where he collaborated with fellow maker Ben Uyeda to bring this impossible-looking piece to life. Because apparently, regular furniture shopping was just too easy.

What makes this project particularly fascinating is the challenge it presents. You can’t just slap a piece of wood on a rock and call it a day. The engineering behind making a functional bench that appears to defy gravity while maintaining structural integrity is no small feat. The rock needs to support weight, the wood needs to actually hold someone sitting on it, and the whole thing needs to look effortlessly elegant. It’s like solving a three-dimensional puzzle where one wrong move means your mountain bench becomes a pile of expensive mistakes.

The aesthetic is pure contemporary design poetry. We’re often surrounded by mass-produced IKEA clones so there’s something refreshing about furniture that tells a story. This bench doesn’t just serve a function, it starts conversations. It’s sculptural enough to be art but practical enough to be, you know, an actual bench. That balance is harder to achieve than it looks.

For design enthusiasts, this project represents a growing trend in furniture making where natural elements meet modern sensibilities. We’ve seen epoxy river tables take over Instagram, live-edge everything dominate Pinterest boards, and now we’re watching makers push even further into territory where nature and craft become indistinguishable. The floating bench takes this concept and cranks it up to eleven.

What’s particularly cool about Miles’ approach is that he shares the entire process. We’re used to only being shown the polished final product so watching the actual building process, complete with challenges and solutions, makes the piece feel more accessible. Sure, most of us aren’t going to Joshua Tree to hunt for the perfect mountain-shaped rock and engineer a bench around it, but seeing it done demystifies the creative process and might just inspire someone to try their own impossible project.

The technical aspects are equally impressive. How do you secure wood to rock? How do you ensure the weight distribution won’t cause catastrophic failure when someone decides to plop down with their morning coffee? These aren’t questions with easy answers, and that’s what makes the finished product so satisfying to look at. This bench exists in that sweet spot where art, engineering, and function converge. It’s impractical in all the best ways while still being completely practical. You could put it in your entryway, and it would be the most interesting piece anyone encounters in your home. You could place it in a gallery, and it would hold its own against any contemporary sculpture.

In a design landscape often dominated by minimalism to the point of sterility or maximalism that verges on chaos, Miles’ floating bench offers something different. It’s bold without being loud, natural without being rustic, and modern without feeling cold. And honestly, isn’t that exactly what we want from design? Something that surprises us, makes us think, and still lets us sit down at the end of the day.

The post This Floating Bench Defies Gravity (and Your Expectations) first appeared on Yanko Design.

When a Neighborhood Reclaimed Its Lost Shore With 9,200 Face Masks

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Here’s something you don’t expect to sit on: surgical masks. Nearly 10,000 of them, to be exact. But that’s exactly what Design PY created in Hong Kong’s Tai Kok Tsui neighborhood with Tidal Stories, a spiraling urban installation that quite literally traces where the ocean used to be.

The concept is brilliant in its simplicity. Tai Kok Tsui was once a coastal area, but over a century of land reclamation pushed the shoreline further and further away. Today, most people walking through this district have no idea they’re treading on what was once underwater. Design PY decided to make that invisible history visible again through a helical seating structure that maps the old coastline right onto the public space.

Designer: Design PY

What makes this project especially clever is how it tackles two challenges at once. First, there’s the environmental angle. The pandemic left us with a staggering amount of medical waste, and those 9,200 upcycled surgical masks in the installation are just a tiny fraction of what ended up in landfills and oceans. By incorporating them into public furniture, Design PY transforms waste into something functional and meaningful. Second, there’s the cultural preservation piece. Urban development often erases neighborhood memory, but Tidal Stories brings it back in a form people can literally interact with every day.

The installation isn’t just about looking pretty or making a statement (though it does both). It’s actually being used. Elderly residents rest on the benches. Nearby workers grab lunch there. People passing through stop to sit and chat. The design reactivated what was basically a forgotten corner of the neighborhood and turned it into a gathering spot.

But here’s where it gets even more interesting. The metal tabletops aren’t just tables. They’re engraved with references to Tai Kok Tsui’s industrial and coastal past, functioning as both amenities and educational tools. The whole installation doubles as an informal museum, hosting architectural tours and community events that help people understand how their neighborhood evolved from fishing village to dense urban district.

This kind of design thinking feels especially relevant right now. We’re all grappling with questions about sustainability, about how to deal with waste we’ve created, about preserving cultural identity in rapidly changing cities. Tidal Stories doesn’t just answer these questions theoretically. It shows what’s possible when you combine circular design principles with community engagement and historical awareness.

The helical form itself is striking. It curves and spirals through the space, creating natural gathering points and visual interest without overwhelming the neighborhood’s existing character. You can see the installation from different angles as you approach, and each perspective tells a slightly different story about the relationship between past and present.

What’s refreshing about this project is that it doesn’t lecture. It invites. There’s no heavy-handed messaging about environmentalism or preservation. Instead, it creates an experience that lets people discover the layers of meaning on their own terms. Maybe you just want a place to sit. Maybe you’re curious about the unusual materials. Maybe you start reading the engravings and realize your neighborhood used to look completely different. All of these are valid ways to engage with the work.

The use of surgical masks as a primary material might seem gimmicky at first, but it makes perfect sense when you think about it. The pandemic was a collective experience that generated collective waste. Using that waste to create something that serves the collective good completes a kind of circle. Plus, it’s a reminder that design solutions don’t always require pristine new materials. Sometimes the most sustainable choice is working with what we already have too much of.

Tidal Stories proves that urban furniture can be so much more than benches and tables. It can be a history lesson, an environmental statement, a community hub, and a work of art all at once. That’s the kind of multifunctional thinking we need more of as cities continue to evolve.

The post When a Neighborhood Reclaimed Its Lost Shore With 9,200 Face Masks first appeared on Yanko Design.

This Solar Bench Just Turned Every City Street Into a Charging Hub

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Picture this: you’re exhausted from walking through the city, desperately need to charge your phone, and suddenly spot the perfect bench bathed in soft light. You sit down, plug in, and realize this isn’t just any piece of street furniture. It’s actually harvesting energy from the sun and transforming the urban landscape around you. Welcome to Perovia, a design project that’s making us rethink what public spaces can be.

Created by TAIWA, a contemporary design laboratory that lives at the crossroads of technology, sustainability, and spatial aesthetics, Perovia is essentially an urban bench on steroids. But calling it just a bench feels like calling a smartphone just a phone. It’s so much more than that.

Designer: TAIWA

The name itself is a clever nod to perovskite, a revolutionary solar material that’s been causing quite a stir in renewable energy circles. Unlike traditional bulky solar panels, perovskite cells are flexible, efficient, and can be integrated into all sorts of surfaces. TAIWA took this cutting-edge tech and asked a simple question: what if our city furniture could work as hard as we do?

The result is something that looks like it rolled out of a sci-fi movie set. Perovia functions as what the designers call “a node of light in the urban circuit.” During the day, it quietly soaks up solar energy through its integrated perovskite cells. As evening falls, it transforms into a glowing beacon, providing ambient lighting that makes public spaces feel safer and more inviting. But it doesn’t stop there. The bench also features USB charging ports, because let’s be honest, in 2025, a dead phone battery is basically a modern emergency.

What makes this design particularly brilliant is how it addresses multiple urban challenges simultaneously. Cities everywhere are wrestling with sustainability goals, trying to reduce their carbon footprints while making public spaces more livable. Street lighting gobbles up enormous amounts of electricity, and providing public charging stations requires complex infrastructure. Perovia tackles both issues in one sleek package.

But beyond the recognition and the tech specs, what’s really exciting about Perovia is its philosophy. TAIWA describes being inspired by “the silent rhythm of cities,” and you can feel that in the design. Cities have their own pulse, their own flow of energy and movement. Most street furniture just sits there passively, but Perovia actively participates in that urban metabolism. It takes energy when the sun is high, gives light when darkness falls, and serves people whenever they need it.

This kind of thinking represents a fundamental shift in how we approach urban design. For too long, sustainability features have been add-ons, afterthoughts bolted onto existing infrastructure. Perovia shows what happens when you bake sustainability into the core concept from the beginning. The result doesn’t just work better, it looks better too. The bench manages to be both futuristic and inviting, high-tech without feeling cold or intimidating.

Of course, the real test will be seeing these benches roll out in actual cities, weathering real conditions and serving real communities. Will the technology hold up? Can it scale affordably? These are questions that only time will answer. But as a proof of concept and a vision of what’s possible, Perovia absolutely delivers.

We live in a world where climate change dominates headlines and cities struggle to reinvent themselves for a sustainable future. So we need designs that don’t make us choose between functionality and environmental responsibility. Perovia suggests we can have both, wrapped up in a package that actually makes our cities more beautiful and livable. That’s the kind of design innovation worth getting excited about.

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Transform Your Living Space into a Fitness Hub with the Highly Compact Gympad All-in-One Bench

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There is a substantial increase in the number of portable home exercisers taking the crowdfunding route. The most recent was the table-size foldable rowing machine for an all-inclusive gym experience at home. During the pandemic, gyms were adversely affected by attendance; people confined themselves to their homes – stocked with exercise equipment somehow – and never looked back at gyms.

Arguably, this number has been constantly increasing since then. Even though, in most cases, this setup is nothing compared to the gear and variety at the local gym. To fill the void, compact all-in-one home exercisers, which look perfectly in place at home and are versatile to permit a range of workouts, are dropping faster than the gyms sprouting in my locality.

Designer: Gympad

Click Here to Buy Now: $799 $1,699 (53% off). Less than 5 days to go. Hurry, 1/50 left!

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Gympad Bench is the latest one to jump onto the bandwagon of an all-in-one home gym system. It is a professional-level home gym that fits into a compact size for easy transportation and values the precious space in your apartment. Despite its small form factor, it can let an enthusiast indulge in a range of workouts, offering dumbbell racks, stretching space, cardio equipment, a strength training machine, and a bench among other options.

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Designed for everyone, who fancies a versatile home gym facility, but doesn’t have the luxury of extra space to create a gym, the Gympad Bench takes as little as 0.35 sqm of space at home. It is made to look like a contemporary piece of furniture; so, when it’s not in use, and is just sitting there unattended, it won’t look off. The compact bench will fit seamlessly in your living environment while opening up to various workout options and comprehensive strength training.

When sitting there on a bench, the Gympad hides all the equipment within, other than the set of dumbbells on the sides. The bench is equipped with a pair of wheels for moving it conveniently from the sitting location to the action spot when you need it. While the standard variant comes integrated with full-body workout machines like dumbbells and barbells, weight machines, leg presses, chest fly, and cable crossover machines; all fitted into one unit, its Plus version adds a rower to the equation, unlocking a whole new range of exercise options.

The Gympad bench is a smart machine that syncs up with your smartphone, using a dedicated app, to display workout data such as fat burns, range of motion, strength score, sets, reps, or even dynamic weight adjustments. Weight adjustments are digital and an external knob is added to control the resistance ranging between 16 to 80kg; the highest in a smart gym bench on the market, the company behind the Gympad claims. Further stating that unlike most other home gyms competitors, which require subscriptions to use their training modules, Gympad bench delivers a comprehensive app for no additional fee.

Click Here to Buy Now: $799 $1,699 (53% off). Less than 5 days to go. Hurry, 1/50 left!

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Cuna Furniture Upcycles Your TV Box Into Sustainable Multifunctional Furniture

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Innovative design often emerges from the desire to solve a problem, and the Cuna furniture collection is a perfect example of this principle. Created as a solution to repurpose cardboard, Cuna is an eco-friendly piece of furniture that is cleverly designed, a multifunctional piece that redefines the concept of sustainability and functionality.

Designer: Valeria CoelloCrafted from cardboard, a material readily available in most households, it is a testament to the idea that there is latent potential in what we often consider to be “waste.” Think about the sheer volume of cardboard boxes that accompany the gadgets, appliances, and packages we receive daily. Rather than relegating this cardboard to landfills, Cuna repurposes it, offering an ingenious solution that is as practical as it is environmentally friendly.

Created from just two sheets of sturdy cardboard joined by five additional pieces, the bench offers a unique aesthetic and DIY experience. It’s a lovely DIY experience that allows one to build a connection with their masterpiece. The brilliance actually lies in the simplicity of its design. By utilizing the principles of joinery, the pieces interlock without the need for screws or adhesives, forming a structure that is remarkably sturdy and surprisingly lightweight.

The genius of the Cuna bench lies in its versatility. When assembled, it can be used in two different ways, depending on the user’s needs. In its standard configuration, it offers a beautifully curved seating area for one person. However, flip it upside down, and an additional layer of cardboard transforms it into a conventional flat bench, capable of potentially seating an extra person. This dual-purpose functionality extends further; the flat-top version can also serve as a table. With two of these benches, you have a complete set—a low table and chairs—perfect for various settings, from hosting parties to day-to-day living.

Despite being made of cardboard, Cuna is surprisingly comfortable. The 6-8mm thickness of the cardboard provides a firm yet yielding surface, which is gentle on the body. The curved design provides a cozy seating experience, with the sides acting as convenient armrests or even as a place to set down a cup or phone. When placed against a wall, it even acts as a makeshift backrest. Furthermore, it can serve as a daybed, allowing you to rest on one side while placing your legs on the other.

Cuna is an ideal option for a wide range of scenarios. Whether you are a student on a budget, a bachelor looking for practical and sustainable furniture or a new homeowner looking to add both comfort and sustainability to your space, Cuna fits the bill perfectly.

The next time you unbox a new TV, microwave, or even the humble pizza, think twice before discarding the packaging. With Cuna, you can repurpose that cardboard, transforming it into a functional piece of furniture that adds an element of sustainability and comfort to your living space.

The post Cuna Furniture Upcycles Your TV Box Into Sustainable Multifunctional Furniture first appeared on Yanko Design.

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?

The post The Humble Origata Collection Is Inspired By The Fascinating Art Of Kimono Making first appeared on Yanko Design.

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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