This dining set is a commission for a good friend a prolific nz painter and while I’m a big fan of her work very bias something that I believe stands out within her work is the relentless and continued experimentation.

Building furniture for me came out of an inspiration with the furniture designed by architects throughout history however my process came out of a frustration with standard practice. The design process is so linear and the feedback loop of projects is in the years, this results in really slow learning in my opinion. I thought if I was building there were no need for drawings and I could designand build at the same time. It was and is still a learning tool for me, repetition and exposure to materials allows my architectural thinking to develop and think up new possibilities. I think now that my architecture practice and my furniture/sculpture is within the same space it allows for an intentional intersection of disciplines. Imagine a hydroformed house for example.

This commission gave an appropriate opportunity to push a few ideas and express a bit of playfulness while trying to keep them cohesive. By keeping the chair frame and colour consistent I gave myself a window to play with the materiality of the steel in a few different ways. The outcome is a mix of hydroforming, rod and bucket like seat which was an experiment of what would steel look like if it mimicked slung leather.