Zene Cadira de menjador by John G Williams

Zene Cadira de menjador by John G Williams is a highly esteemed winner of the very prestigious 2018 A' Design Award de Ferro in Disseny de Mobiliari Competition Category.

FerroMobiliari· 2018

Zene Cadira de menjador

by John G Williams

Client: John G Williams

A' Design Award de Ferro Winner in Mobiliari Category

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Verified Award Winner

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View at A' Design Award Press Release Award Badge

Colors

The Design

About Zene Cadira de menjador

La cadira de menjador Zene s'inspira en la fusta autòctona i el disseny modern danès. Els marcs lleugers de freixe són senzills i robustos, i sostenen seients i respatllers de fusta dura que semblen surar sobre l'estructura. Les formes corbes del seient i el respatller no es creen doblegant la fusta, sinó unint i modelant fusta dura massissa. Com a sèrie, els marcs lleugers de freixe aporten cohesió, mentre que els diferents materials locals escollits per als seients i respatllers generen interès i rellevància.

The Recognition

About the A' Design Award de Ferro

Zene Cadira de menjador és un guanyador del guardó A' Design Award de Ferro, un reconeixement prestigiós concedit a bons dissenys que compleixen els requisits professionals i industrials esperats de creacions ben dissenyades. Els guanyadors de Ferro demostren una gran habilitat, una alta especialització, una comprensió experta i la capacitat creativa dels seus creadors. Es preveu que Zene Cadira de menjador sigui una creació molt apreciada, admirada i estimada que és pràctica i innovadora. Aquest disseny guanyador del guardó A' Design Award de Ferro integra les millors pràctiques del sector i té característiques tècniques competents lligades al coneixement i al talent. Zene Cadira de menjador és respectat per la seva minuciositat i està pensat per oferir millores en la qualitat de vida que ajuden a fer del món un lloc millor.

Behind the Design

Press Kit

Credits, team members and technical details provided by the designer.

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
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.
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.
Patents: no patents pending
Team Members: John G Williams: designer, craftsman
Image Credits: all images by the designer: John G Williams