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