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Zene 식탁 의자 by John G Williams

Zene 식탁 의자 by John G Williams is a highly esteemed winner of the very prestigious 2018 A' Design Award 철상 in 가구 디자인 Competition Category.


철가구· 2018

Zene 식탁 의자

by John G Williams

Client: John G Williams

A' Design Award 철상 Winner in 가구 Category

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Verified Award Winner

Verify Award Status for #58495

Colors

The Design

About Zene 식탁 의자

Zene 식탁 의자는 토착 목재와 덴마크 모던 디자인에서 영감을 얻었습니다. 가볍고 견고한 물푸레나무 프레임은 단순하면서도 튼튼하며, 프레임 위에 떠 있는 듯한 원목 좌판과 등받이를 지지합니다. 좌판과 등받이의 곡선 형태는 나무를 구부려 만든 것이 아니라, 단단한 원목을 접합하고 다듬어 완성한 것입니다. 시리즈로서 가벼운 물푸레나무 프레임은 통일성을 제공하며, 좌판과 등받이에 선택된 다양한 지역 소재는 흥미로움과 의미를 더합니다.

The Recognition

About the A' Design Award 철상

Zene 식탁 의자, 이 작품은 A' Design Award 철상 수상작으로, 잘 디자인된 창작물에 기대되는 전문적·산업적 요건을 충족하는 좋은 디자인에 수여되는 권위 있는 인정입니다. 철상 수상작은 창작자의 뛰어난 기술, 높은 전문성, 전문가다운 이해, 창의적 역량을 보여 줍니다. Zene 식탁 의자, 이 작품은 높이 평가받고 감탄과 사랑을 받는 창작물로서 실용적이고 혁신적일 것으로 기대됩니다. 이 철상 수상 디자인은 업계 모범 사례를 통합하며 노하우와 재능으로 연결된 유능한 기술적 특성을 갖추고 있습니다. Zene 식탁 의자, 이 작품은 철저함으로 존중받으며 삶의 질을 개선하여 세상을 더 나은 곳으로 만들도록 디자인되었습니다.

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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