Hasta La Ideas

German design graduate Meike Harde has designed a range of upholstered benches and stools simply by folding foam mats and fixing them to wooden frames with elastic bands.

Meike Harde created the furniture with the motivation to explore new methods of upholstery construction, aiming to create a stiff cushion from a flat foam mat.

“Other upholstery products are trying to use fabric without wrinkles. I want to use the natural creases in a big dimension as ornamentation, and to construct stiffness,” explains Meike, adding that stretching fabric over foam to create a flat finish requires a difficult construction process that takes a lot of time.

By contrast, the simple, fast construction method that Meike has invented uses just three components: foam, rubber bands and wood.

The foam mat is layered and gathered tightly to create waves that are held together at the top and bottom with elastic bands. The cushion is then compressed and fixed using longer elastic bands in the opposite direction, before the wooden stool is inserted underneath the elastic.

This design avoids permanent connections between the foam and the wood, making it easy to replace cushions when they become worn.

The small stool, which Meike says ”looks like broccoli, is made from a square piece of foam while the benches are made from a rectangular piece of foam.

When asked about the comfort of the stiff benches, Meike told Dezeen “the furniture should be used as a bench, not as a very soft armchair,” comparing the comfort to that of Chesterfield leather furniture.

We have also featured a series of disturbing masks designed by Meike Harde, called Too Beautiful to be True.

Other benches and stools we have featured on Dezeen include a bench that can be converted into a chaise longue, or an armchair and a side table, and a collection of stools that can be used as tables or seats.

The post Zieharsofika upholstery
by Meike Harde appeared first on Dezeen.

London Design Festival: industrial designer Benjamin Hubert has created a trestle table and bench with timber parts held in tension by sheets of bowed steel.

The trestle table rests across two sets of tripod legs, each supported by a rolled sheet of steel, while the bench sits over a single long strip of steel.

“The rolled steel allows for a great strength to weight ratio as well as economy of materials,” explained Hubert. “It also has the benefit in the bench of giving suspension to the user and some flex to the seat.”

The Bow collection launched at the designjunction trade show during London Design Festival last month, where Hubert also showed a lighting collection made of mesh fabric and a chair constructed from a piece of T-shirt-shaped curled plywood.

The pieces were produced in collaboration with Portuguese manufacturer De La Espada, who last year invited Hubert to design his first complete collection.

See all our stories about Benjamin Hubert »
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Here’s some more information from the designer:

Bow by Benjamin Hubert x De La Espada
Bow is a series of furniture including a trestle table and bench launching at the London Design Festival in collaboration with Portuguese manufacturer De La Espada.

Bow is a system of simple timber frames and surfaces held in tension by a rolled sheet of mild steel. The rolled steel allows for a great strength to weight ratio swell as economy of materials. It also has the benefit in the bench of giving suspension to the user and some flex to the seat.

The integration between the steel and timber has been CNC cut to maintain a fluid integration of the two materials and geometries. The timber and steel system has also been designed to be knockdown for cost effective shipping to reduce its carbon footprint. The system has been developed over a period of 12 months after several interations of prototying and testing.

Materials:
Solid Ash Mild Steel
Dimensions:
Bench H 450mmx L1800mm x D400mm
Trestle H 740mmx L1800mm x D900mm

The post Bow by Benjamin Hubert
for De La Espada appeared first on Dezeen.

London Design Festival: Edward Barber and Jay Osgerby, Jasper Morrison and AL_A are among the designers who have created benches with British design brand Established & Sons for the central courtyard of the V&A museum (+slideshow).

Each of the one-off benches is made from a different material and produced in collaboration with a company specialising in that material. After being on display for the festival they’ll be auctioned off and the money fed back to fund next year’s London Design Festival commissions.

Edward Barber and Jay Osgerby, the designers of the Olympic torch, made a marble bench with holes bored through (above) in collaboration with Italian studio Tor Art. They were inspired by shrapnel marks left in the V&A museum’s western facade after the Second World War. “It’s something that always fascinated me and Ed on the way from South Kensington tube up to the Royal College when we were students, and so when this project came up we thought it was a nice way to reference that,” explained Jay Osgerby at the opening.

AL_A, the architecture practice led by Amanda Levete, worked with Barcelona ceramics company Ceramica Cumella to come up with a bench (above) made of overlapping tiles, glazed with colours inspired by the museum’s ceramics collections. AL_A is also designing a new subterranean gallery for the museum.

British designer Alexander Taylor made a bench from mirror-polished stainless steel cylinders (above) with steel specialists Caparo. He explained that making perfect cylinders in steel is tricky because “the material is extruded with an oval profile so it has to be cut and put back together again.”

Italian designer Martino Gamper built a wooden bench (above) from slanted planks of thermally modified hardwood, treated to improve its stability and resistance to decay. The angled stripes of red oak, maple, ash, yellow birch and tulipwood provided by the American Hardwood Export Council create an “optical illusion” and “somehow give the impression of animation” said Gamper, adding that the modular system can be extended to any length.

British designer Jasper Morrison collaborated with concrete specialists lowinfo to create a concrete bench (above) with narrow runnels along the seat that allow rain water to drain away despite the seat being curved for comfort, while German designer Konstantin Grcic worked with Italian company Bisazza on a glass mosaic bench (below).

Portugese designer Fernando Brizio created a cork bench in the shape of a pig’s foot (below) with Amorim Cork.

British designer Felix de Pass produced a cream-coloured sheet-steel bench (below) with perforations that help water drain away and disperse heat from the sun. It’s an adaptation of his bench that’s already in production with Established & Sons.

Sam Hecht and Kim Colin from Industrial Facility worked with Corian, a material often used for kitchen worktops, to create two benches (below) that mimic the marble plinths found inside the museum.

Sadly the final bench in the collection, created by Italian designer Luca Nichetto and glass manufacturer Nardo Vetro, was broken in transit.

Other installations at the V&A during the London Design Festival include Keiichi Matsuda’s data visualisation and chairs by Nendo scattered around the museum.

See all stories about the V&A »
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The post Bench Years by Established & Sons
at the V&A museum appeared first on Dezeen.

German designer Valentin Loellmann used hazel branches to create the knobbly legs of these benches, tables and stools.

The naturally uneven legs were charred to black before being treated with wax.

Polished oak was used for the seats and tabletops.

We’ve previously featured a set of polyester-coated furniture by Loellmann.

See all our stories about blackened wood »

Here’s some more information from the designer:

The project Seasons presents two interconnected collections by Valentin Loellmann which reflect a search for a system that depends on organic dynamism rather than geometric dictation, aiming to open up a space where design might not only mould nature, but also be moulded by it.

The collection Fall/Winter consists of stools, benches and tables with different dimensions, functions and structures. Although diverse in size and set-up, all pieces are characterised by a similar working process in which mortise-and-tenon joints are used to connect hazel branches to an oak top.

A mixture of sawdust and glue is used to fill and round off these connections, resulting in an aesthetic, organic form in which no sharp edges remain.

The pieces are burned and treated with wax, after which the top is sanded, polished and treated with oil. The hazel branches, chosen for their strength and straightness, introduce a natural dynamic into the final structure and give each piece a distinct recognisable character. Each piece is hand-made, marked and numbered.

The post Seasons by
Valentin Loellmann appeared first on Dezeen.

Spanish designer Valentin Garal has designed a bench with an integrated budgie cage.

The Family Bench is made of solid willow and was designed for retailer the Le Porc-Shop.

More bench stories on Dezeen »

The following is by the designer:

FAMILY BENCH

By Valentín Garal for Le Porc-Shop 2011

Family Bench is a collaboration by the Spanish designer Valentin Garal for Le Porc-Shop, a Mexican hand-crafted furniture workshop. Family Bench is an object conceived for the “non places” often forgotten and lacking of character.

It is made of solid willow wood, with an outstanding crafted work on the cage. Its construction moves to a concept of excellence for the social and sentimental scope. Pedagogical in its design, functions as a bank of family ties.

It requires a tender care by all members that surround the Family Bench. With a touch of irony, is a reflective piece destined to become a point of meeting, discussion and preservation of social relations.

Solid willow wood hand-crafted
120 x 190 x 45 cms

See also:

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Balloon Bench by h220430	Shared Space III by Chris Kabel	Pylon by Abrahamsson and Fagerström