re{cycle}ed bench

UNCG is opening up a student run store that will provide students a place to sell work or provide services to other students. Our class was asked to design a piece of furniture to go either inside or outside the space. The objective was to incorporate recycled materials to lower costs. My design incorporates reclaimed steel strips that are shaped to provide both seating and a place to secure one's bicycle. It is half bench, half bicycle rack.

Groovy Stuff

The design objective, short and sweet:

Groovy Stuff (a furniture company that reclaims teak from Thailand and transforms it into a groovy piece of furniture) presented our class with the challenge to create a piece of furniture that was made from the wood that they had reclaimed. Immediately I was drawn to the beauty of the teak logs, and thus began to formulate a design that celebrated their natural form.

From the beginning I was interested in using the logs to act as the legs for a coffee table.

Skipping past a few dozen other prototypes, below are more examples of tables that were produced along the way. I wanted the logs to be the center of attention, and the table to be as simplistic as possible. These tables were designed to be exterior tables that would be placed in the ground for support.

My final design, Enclosure, focuses on the use of rectilinear planes intersected by the curvature of reclaimed teak logs. This table cradles the branches, further highlighting and showcasing the beauty of the teak.

Process Models

Ecotect: Solar Analysis Studies