Thread Bench is designed with playfulness and a child’s outlook on the world in mind. It has a naivistic and lighthearted style, based on asymmetry and chaos rather than precision and accuracy. Why does everything have to be so perfect and tidy looking? In my design process, it has been important to let go of controlling the material, and to create a piece of furniture that sum up what furniture design has been all about for some time now. Thread Bench is meant to illustrate the importance of keeping in touch with the child within. In some respects, I see it as a kind of portrait of myself.
The bench is a handicraft that is almost impossible to produce industrially. It is made of massive metal bars. To bend the bar stocks in the desired angles, I have used both types of forging: cold and warm. Using these two techniques to alter the structure of atoms and molecules in the metal, I have allowed for an experimental manner of shaping the bench, where no two benches are exactly the same.
The finished prototype is very similar to the tiny model that was sculpted in metal wire. A series of furniture based on the concept would do a great deal to liven up stiff and serious environments with their playful and childish shapes.
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