Zene 餐椅 by John G Williams is a highly esteemed winner of the very prestigious 2018 A' Design Award 鐵獎 in 傢俱設計 Competition Category.

鐵傢俱· 2018

Zene 餐椅

by John G Williams

Client: John G Williams

A' Design Award 鐵獎 Winner in 傢俱 Category

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Verified Award Winner

Verify Award Status for #58495

View at A' Design Award Press Release Award Badge

Colors

The Design

About Zene 餐椅

Zene餐椅的靈感源自本土木材同丹麥現代設計風格。淺色橡木框架簡潔而堅固，承托住彷似漂浮於框架之上嘅硬木座面同靠背。座面同靠背嘅弧形並非透過彎曲木材而成，而係以實心硬木拼接同雕塑成形。作為一個系列，淺色橡木框架賦予整體設計統一感，而座面同靠背所選用嘅各種本地材料，則為設計增添趣味性同地域關聯性。

The Recognition

About the A' Design Award 鐵獎

Zene 餐椅是 A' Design Award 鐵獎得主，這是授予滿足人們對設計精良的創作所期待的專業與工業要求的優良設計的聲望認可。鐵獎得主展現出其創作者的高超技藝、高度專業化、專家級的理解力和創造能力。預計Zene 餐椅將成為一件備受推崇、令人欽佩且被珍愛的創作，既實用又創新。這件贏得 A' Design Award 鐵獎的設計整合了行業最佳實踐，並擁有與專業知識和才華相結合的稱職技術特性。Zene 餐椅因其嚴謹而受到尊重，旨在提供有助於讓世界變得更美好的生活品質改善。

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