Zene Spisestuestol by John G Williams is a highly esteemed winner of the very prestigious 2018 A' Design Award i Jern in Møbeldesign Competition Category.
JernMøbler· 2018
Zene Spisestuestol
Client: John G Williams
A' Design Award i Jern Winner in Møbler Category
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- Verified Award Winner
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The Design
About Zene Spisestuestol
Zene-spisestuestolen henter sin inspiration fra hjemmehørende træsorter og dansk moderne design. De lyse asketræsstel er enkle og robuste og understøtter sæder og ryglæn i hårdttræ, der ser ud til at svæve på stellet. Sædets og ryglænets buede former dannes ikke ved at bøje træet, men derimod ved at samle og forme massivt hårdttræ. Som serie skaber de lyse asketræsstel sammenhæng, mens forskellige lokale materialer, der er udvalgt til sæder og ryglæn, skaber interesse og relevans.
The Recognition
About the A' Design Award i Jern
Zene Spisestuestol er vinder af A' Design Award i Jern, en prestigefyldt anerkendelse, der tildeles gode designs, som opfylder de professionelle og industrielle krav, man forventer af veldesignede skabelser. Jernvinderne viser stor dygtighed, høj specialisering, ekspertforståelse og kreativ kapacitet hos deres skabere. Zene Spisestuestol forventes at være en højt estimeret, beundret og kær skabelse, der er praktisk og innovativ. Dette design, der har vundet A' Design Award i Jern, integrerer branchens bedste praksis og har kompetente tekniske egenskaber knyttet til knowhow og talent. Zene Spisestuestol respekteres for sin grundighed og er designet til at levere forbedringer af livskvaliteten, der er med til at gøre verden til et bedre sted.
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
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