Zene Chaise de salle à manger by John G Williams

Zene Chaise de salle à manger by John G Williams is a highly esteemed winner of the very prestigious 2018 A' Design Award de Fer in Design de Mobilier Competition Category.

FerMobilier· 2018

Zene Chaise de salle à manger

by John G Williams

Client: John G Williams

A' Design Award de Fer Winner in Mobilier 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 Chaise de salle à manger

La chaise de salle à manger Zene puise son inspiration dans le bois indigène et le design danois moderne. Les cadres en frêne clair, simples et robustes, soutiennent des assises et des dossiers en bois dur qui semblent flotter sur la structure. Les formes courbes de l'assise et du dossier ne sont pas obtenues en cintrant le bois, mais plutôt en assemblant et en façonnant du bois dur massif. En tant que série, les cadres en frêne clair assurent une cohésion, tandis que les différents matériaux locaux sélectionnés pour les assises et les dossiers suscitent l'intérêt et la pertinence.

The Recognition

About the A' Design Award de Fer

Zene Chaise de salle à manger est lauréat de l'A' Design Award de Fer, une reconnaissance prestigieuse décernée à de bons designs qui répondent aux exigences professionnelles et industrielles attendues de créations bien conçues. Les lauréats Fer démontrent la grande compétence, la haute spécialisation, la compréhension experte et la capacité créative de leurs créateurs. Zene Chaise de salle à manger est censé être une création très estimée, admirée et chérie, pratique et innovante. Ce design lauréat de l'A' Design Award de Fer intègre les meilleures pratiques de l'industrie et présente des caractéristiques techniques compétentes associées à un savoir-faire et à du talent. Zene Chaise de salle à manger est respecté pour sa rigueur et est conçu pour apporter des améliorations de la qualité de vie qui contribuent à faire du monde un monde meilleur.

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