“Lucky for them, in Spain they have more sun than we do,” Haberli says, describing how he got started designing his outdoor benches. “You can imagine the people spend more time outdoors, in the streets, in the piazzas, than we do. I just imagined people who were in a park. I thought of a couple, […]
Category: Design Secrets: Furniture 50 Real-Life Projects Uncovered
Rocks, Arik Levy “There was only the urge to create a new object,” says Arik Levy of the inspifdtion for Rocks. “An object which has a fascinating appearance and represents the contrast between the ИіШіаП being and nature
between something which is open and closed, between something solid and soft, and something which appears and disappears as it reflects it’s environment.” It’s hard to say exactly what Rocks is or are. Perhaps it is a bench, or a seat, or a piece of garden sculpture. Most simply, they are highly polished pieces of […]
Park Lane Bench, Bjorn Dahlstrom, Dahlstrom Design “I’ve always been quite interested in the public space,” notes Bjorn Dahlstrom. “I think it’s quite fascinating when you
have a lot of people who don’t know each other sharing a space and furniture in a museum or someplace. It’s like experimenting with what kind of a space you need for when you sit next to people you don’t know.” When he began to design the Park Lane Bench for Nola, Dahlstrom turned his […]
Laurel Bench, Mark Goetz, TZ Design “This project began, as most of my projects do, with a particular need,” says Mark Goetz of his Laurel Bench
“The need, identified by Bernhardt Design, was to develop a bench for architectural settings, specifically hotels, hallways, any kind of business environment.” He pauses before adding, “And then, my sort of hopeful and less verbalized intention was for it to find it’s way into people’s homes.” Once these basic parameters had been identified, Goetz looked […]
Solid Series, Patrick Jouin “When you design a chair, you know the technology you will use,” says Patrick Jouin. “You know if you design one in steel, or plastic, or wood, so before your pencil touches the paper, you have in mind all the constraints of the technology you will use to produce the product.”
“When you design an object,” he continues, “you will always have someone else who will come in the process, and say, ‘Sorry Patrick, you can’t do it like this because our machine won’t do this.’ So I change it. I don’t want to, but I have to find a solution. Or the manufacturer will say, […]
Shell Table, Barber Osgerby The Shell Table is the only logical conclusion to Barber Osgerby’s twin fascinations with a humble material and a pared-down aesthetic
“We love working with plywood,” says Ed Barber, “because it’s somewhere between working with regular wood and with plastic. Like plastic, you can mold plywood into certain shapes, but unlike plastic, it doesn’t deteriorate as it ages. In some cases, it actually looks better as it ages.” The other idea the designers, Jay Osgerby and […]
Origami Table, Michael Wolfson “They were based on the geometry and forms that I deal with, looking into the ideas of movement and motion, which were developed by the modernists, the deconstructionists and other ‘ists’ and ‘isms/”
says Michael Wolfson of the genesis of his Origami Table. “Their studies of movement and motion are still going on today.” In addition to these influences, the seeds for what would become Wolfson’s Origami Table were planted a decade ago with a project that involved designing some chairs. But it wasn’t until a couple of […]
Not So Soft Table and Chairs, Stephen Burks
“There always has been a kind of joy for me in assembling something and understanding how it works,” says Stephen Burks, explaining the Not So Soft Table. “The best, most successfully designed objects are those that are immediate, that communicate, in a way, their function, that say what they do. I like how this table […]
Structure of instruments and how they’re put together, the end result is always beautiful, and it hasn’t changed much over time,” explains Jeff Jenkins
“Successful furniture is about connections, and how you bring materials together,” he says, “and I started to think about how to translate that structural language of instruments into furniture. It’s a bit of a structural experiment for furniture.” The Low Down Table’s apparent simplicity belies a hidden and unique feature: it can be tuned, much […]
Float Table, Ana Franco “The students knew from day one that if they were selected, this was not something that was going to be exhibited,” says Jerry Helling, creative director
of Bernhardt Design, “but would be produced in the real world for market, and they would have the complete experience as if they had graduated and they were working for a client.” This idea of reality-dose-as-educational-opportunity started when Helling decided to get Bernhardt more closely connected with those who are on their way to becoming […]