BENCH CONCEPTS

Bench Concepts:

This bench has been designed for the DDI Health and Well-being Centre. This design initiative has stemmed from my original design intent which was to create a locker unit with an integrated bench. This original design intent was possible, but complicated. I have decided to concentrate my time and material resources on the bench, saving the locker concept for another project at a later date.

I made this decision after I looked at some of the industrial and furniture design projects of the modernist architect, Jean Prouvé (1901-1984), and the corrugated cardboard chairs designed by the contemporary architect, Frank Ghery (1929- ). I have noted the refinement and elegance in the simplicity and efficacy of Prouvé’s pieces and my curiosity has been excited by the potential for recycled cardboard that is exhibited in Ghery’s chairs.

This bench (I am going to build Concept 02) has been proportioned using the Golden Section, and it has been designed from inception with a concern for RARE Architecture (or Sustainable Architecture).

One of my main objectives is to avoid the use of adhesives and mechanical fixings. The 6mm ‘Eco-Ply’ plywood legs slide together and are dowelled at the four corners – This pin-jointing also reflects a major structural aspect of the Health and Well-being Centre’s bow-truss roof construction. The seat is corrugated cardboard that is ‘threaded’ onto the structure. It is anticipated that this material will soften and take on new characteristics as it wears and is used. If the seat wears-out it can be easily replaced.

I have noticed modesty in the pieces of these two architects that I have studied and mentioned above. In their designs they endeavored to serve one function – sometimes two, but then they stopped and they refined and simplified and executed beautiful objects that diligently serve a modest purpose. I am trying to emulate these difficult feats.