Category: chair design awards

Wood Ring Bench by Chris Kabel

Wood Ring Bench by Chris Kabel
The Wood Ring bench by Chris Kabel has been nominated for the Dutch Design Awards

Wood Ring Bench 2010

Oregon Pine

Ø 280, 30 / 35 cm

Edition of 12 by Galerie Kreo, Parijs

A massive wooden beam of 10 metres long has been sawed in a hundred pieces. Those pieces have been fit together accordingly, until a circlular bench is formed. This circle formation has woodgrains that go on without being interrupted. A metal circular band keeps the pieces together.

Wood Ring is part of an installation that Chris Kabel made for Tent and Witte de With – two institutions that share a building together. Every year they invite a designer to design an installation in the lobby of their only shared space in the building.

Because of its shape, construction and material the bench is a meeting place where people make contact in a natural manner. Surrounded by the wood of one enormous tree, everyone feels safe enough to open up to those around them. Wood Ring has the same effect that a sauna has, but without the heat and damp.

The function, shape and construction connect in a surprising but logical way. At the same time Wood Ring gains a special social function that brings people closer together – it makes them in a interact with in other in a free and natural manner. The bench calls out to the nostalgic memory of Monday mornings at school, where all the childred are seated in a circle and tell stories to each other about their weekend. Like some sort of ‘social interaction machine’, Wood Ring invites people to step over the wooden ridge circle (like with a bath tub) to take place on the inner side of the bench and when they do, something automatically makes them to open up and strike up conversations.

Via Dutch Design Awards

Chairs from International Design Competition by Andreu World

Twin Chair by Edward Kaiser

Andreu World presented the awards of the 11th edition of the International Design Competition. 1st prizes went to Twin Chair by Edward Kaiser (Bietigheim-Bissingen, Germany) and Capas chair by Sebastien Cordolean (Barcelona, Spain).

Capas chair by Sebastien Cordolean

Via Architonic’s FB page

The Sea Chair Project

The Sea Chair Project aims to solve the problem of plastic, one chair at a time. Creative minds behind the idea, Azusa Murakami, Alexander Groves & Kieran Jones, made a machine that collects and processes the plastic from marine debris, and are now looking for funding to turn a small fishing trawler into a fully functioning chair making factory – you can help by voting for them here.

From the creators:

“The Sea Chair is a project whereby we hope to collect the considerable volume of micro plastic that pollutes our seas and turn this waste into locally produced sea chairs.

We hope to do this with the help of Britain’s declining fishing fleet, by turning one Cornish fishing boat into a fully functioning plastic chair factory. Having been short-listed for the Victorinox 2011 Time-to-care award, we hope to secure enough funding to sail this boat across the open oceans fabricating chairs along the way.”

The Sea Chair Project will be exhibiting at The Dublin Science Gallery at the end of the year, and the series of chairs produced are to be exhibited at Milan 2012.

Waterfall Bench by Tokujin Yoshioka

Waterfall Glass Bench by Tokujin Yoshioka

Via Spoon & Tamago I rediscovered an eye twitching glass bench by Japan based designer Tokujin Yoshioka: the Waterfall Bench which was presented in 2010 at the occasion of the Museum beyond Museum event in Korea, but originates back from 2002. And I’m a bit sad I didn’t have enough time to explore his exposition in Cologne at the occasion of his appointment of Designer of 2011 by the prestegious German A&W Magazine.

Perillo Chair by Martin Ballendat at 2011 IMM Cologne (2)

Perillo Chair by Martin Ballendat
Perillo Chair by Martin Ballendat. It was awarded with a 2009 Red Dot award.

Update: As indicated in the comments: Probably inspired by Pierre Paulin’s Ribbon Chair

Update 2: About Martin Ballendat:

DIPL. DES. MARTIN BALLENDAT

1958 born in Bochum
1983 diploma for Industrial Design at the university Folkwangschule, Essen
1983 – 1986 designer for the company Sedus, Waldshut
1995 head of the department design and product development for the company Wiesner Hager, Austria
Since 1995 independet design studio with 16 staff members and 2 locations in Germany and Austria

Active for more than 30 well known brands in 13 countries:
Germany, Austria, Switzerland, Italy, Netherlands, United Kingdom, USA, Poland, France, Thailand, Egypt, Japan and Turkey
Most important references: Dauphin (GER), Team 7 (AUT), Brunner (GER), Tonon (I), Züco (SUI), Mobica (EGY), Lucaris Glass (THA)
For more than 15 years lecturer and visiting professor at the university of applied sciences in the field of design in Graz and Salzburg

More than 100 design prizes and other rewards, among them: 25x Red Dot (2x Best of the Best), 13x IF-Award, Best of Neocon Chicago Gold and Silver,
Good Design Award, Best of the Best Interieur Innovations Award, Focus LGA Stuttgart in Gold and Silver, Design Plus Award, Materialica Award,
IIDEX Gold Award Canada, National Award Saarland and further prizes in Austria, Belgium, Netherlands, Japan, China, Hungary and many more

member of the Rotary Club
married, four children

Source: Ballendat.com