Benches Garden Bench

Garden Bench began with an invitation. When Robert Bronwasser asked Studio Beeks to take part in Glue Garten, the garden gallery he hosts outside Amsterdam, the work called for a bench made for open air: for grass, weather and changing light.

The starting point was the first bench designed for the Echo Collective, where the seat is made of raw aluminium. Here the logic is reversed. The aluminium moves to the legs, and the seat is built from oak with cork on top.

The form follows the Techno design language. The legs have the characteristic rounded base, and they pass straight through the thick oak top, where they are fixed with an oak peg. The top of each leg ends flush with the oak and stays in full view, so the construction is not hidden but becomes part of the design. The end grain of the top is fully rounded, as throughout the Techno Collection.

The top is made from the same laminated solid oak as the Techno Collection, reclaimed from an old chair factory and seasoned for twelve years.

The legs are anodised dark green. More and more gardeners and municipalities are letting grass and wildflowers grow freely, and Garden Bench is made for that landscape. Placed in longer grass, the legs fade into their surroundings and the seat appears to hover above the field.

The cork gives the seat a tactile, softer and warmer surface than metal or bare wood. It also suits outdoor use: cork copes well with the weather and naturally resists mold. It is laid in three plates, cut around the tops of the legs and fixed with recessed pins. The plates are easy to remove and replace.