Iron Furniture Design · 2018
Zene Dining chair
- A' Design Award 2018 Iron Winner in Furniture Design
- Awarded April 15, 2018
- CLIENT: John G Williams
- Estimated Number of Design Views: 12,359
- Verification code 96FFCBB562 · Verify this award
About Zene Dining chair
Zene dining chair takes its inspiration from indigenous timber and Danish Modern design. The light ash frames are simple and robust and support hardwood seats and backrests that appear to float on the frame. The curved forms of the seat/backrest are not formed by bending the wood but rather by joining and shaping solid hardwood timber. As a series the light ash frames provide cohesion, and different local materials selected for the seat/backrests generate interest and relevance.
Press Kit
- Unique Properties
- This series of dining chairs have American ash frames and showcase different hardwood timbers for the seat/backrest combinations.
The chairs draw on the ancient art of 'coopering' or how oak barrels are made for fermentation purposes. The curved forms of the seat/backrest are not formed by bending but rather by joining and shaping solid hardwood timber.
The chair strives to be very strong and beautiful. In short: Zene -
elegant, comfortable and dependable. - Dimensions & Packaging
- 515mm wide x 570mm deep x 890mm high
seat: 515mm wide x 390mm deep
back:515mm wide x 200mm high - Tags
- zene, dining chair, south africa, hardwood, curved, cooper, danish modern, minimalist
- Production Technology
- The Zene design evolved over a number of years. The starting point was probably a fascination with the art of coopering and how this has been applied to furniture design. Building the segmented seat and backrests took some practice to perfect, as did the development of custom modifications to standard workshop tools to shape and finish the smoothly shaped forms.
- Design Challenge
- Building the coopered seat/backrests was challenging as it required careful attention to the compression forces on the material and how best to achieve high compression without causing the seats to 'implode'.
Shaping the rough seats into finely finished and smooth curves required considerable re-working of the custom tooling to achieve the desired results - Project Duration
- The first prototype was conceived in Johannesburg in 2007. It was slowly refined as background task over 10 years, and the first set of 6 chairs was produced in 2017
- Operation Flow
- Zene is designed mainly for use at the dining table and is designed for extended dining comfort.
- Research
- Danish modern designs were studied and absorbed to consider different ways of rendering the frame, and its relationship to the seat, and to think through the spatial relationship of the seat to the backrest.
Web search was used to think about typical dimensions for the seat but in the end prototyping proved most fun. - Inspiration
- The beauty grain and colour of indigenous African timber was a key aesthetic inspiration for this project. The more technical inspiration for the overall work, including the frame design came from iconic designers such as Hans J Wegner (for example the CH20 Elbow Chair). The coopering technique was inspired by Ontario furniture designer Adrian Ferrazzutti.
- Image Credits
- all images by the designer: John G Williams
- Patents
- no patents pending
Colors of Zene Dining chair
Design Interview about Zene Dining chair
The main idea behind the Zene dining chair is to provide a seating experience that is extremely comfortable over extended periods through careful attention to the key ergonomic aspects of the design. The chair takes its inspiration from richly grained indigenous hardwoods. A variety of wood types are selected for the seat/backrest combinations, and the repeating theme of the white ash frames provides cohesion to the series.
I was interested in building something that was intriguing and beautiful. Something that seemed really simple and elegant, and yet which was far hard to detail, build and finish than might immediately appear. I wanted to achieve a strong and practical piece that through careful design would appear much lighter
I conceived and built this design on a speculative basis. My dream would be for a major design company or production house to fall in love with it and seek to make it available in limited quantities.
The core aspects of the design were thrashed out over a few weeks during which time the coopered chair components were fine tuned in softwood. The first hardwood chair slowly emerged over the next few months. After a delay the full set of 6 chairs was then put together over the course of a few months.
It was a personal project, inspired by my love of hardwood timber. And my desire to build a chair that was truly comfortable
My design is not yet in production – I currently own the rights outright. I would be delighted to discuss the sale or lease of the rights
I love chair design – the Danish Design Museum in Copenhagen is one of my favourite places. Having built a dining table a while ago, I have been contemplating designing and building a set of dining chairs for the family for some time.
The curved forms were inspired by the Ontario furniture maker Adrian Ferrazzutti who was generous with his support and advice. These shapes in turn drew on centuries of barrel making craftsmanship . I love Hans J Wegner’s designs. The CH24 wishbone chair is iconic. But perhaps the simpler CH20 Elbow Chair is a more direct inspiration for this design. It think the departure from the Danish Modern school is seen in the frame, which joins simple tapered pieces to give the illusion of a flowing frame; and in the seat design which is shaped from solid timber
I think this design would be unapologetic in its market positioning – it would not be cheap to make, and it would be targeted at the discerning customer who put high store in high quality and long lasting design.
I think the design is striking for its contrast between the light ash frame and the richly coloured hard wood. I think this combination of the two colours is quite striking. More typically one would see furniture that was either very light in colour, or altogether a heavy hardwood feel. This attempts to get the best of both worlds: the light modern frames showcasing the beautiful hardwood seats.
Zene is Hungarian for ‘music’ or a harmonious sound. I want these pieces to sit as different and interesting pieces and yet in a harmonious way. To sing together. Zene is also an African name meaning ‘beautiful’, or a Greek name meaning ‘friendly’.
I designed this in a very old fashioned way. I visualized what I had in mind, captured a few ideas in some simple pencil sketches, and then proto-typed the ideas in low cost softwood.
I think the combination of the light ash frames with the rich hardwood seats and rests is unique. I think the floating shape of the hardwood seat and rests are also distinctive
This was largely a one man project. My father is a retired design teacher and he helped build the chair frames and gave various inputs.
I am an engineer by training and so I built various jigs and fixtures to help me produce these chairs. I modified my some of my basic machine tools to produce the compound tapers that were required in the backrests, and others to then machine the sub assemblies to final form.
I set out to make a chair that I found profoundly comfortable. Then I tested it on friends and family. So my research was empirical and based on immediate market feedback
The geometry was quite hard to get right first time. When producing the chair seats, I machine the edges of the numerous boards to an included angle of 1.0 to 1.5 degrees so that when I glue them together they take up the gentle curved form that I desire. This took quite a lot of experimentation.
I thought it would be fun to submit my design to international scrutiny and see how well this compared with other professional designers
To be more patient. And to be more intentional about designing more repeatable to work, to make it easier and safer to make repeated numbers of chairs