I’ve been approached by a client who wants to have a pair of benches made for their home. Based on initial design conversations, I decided to prototype out a shared idea to scale using the same joinery and proportions as in actual scale. This is just a starting point, and what followed was a visit from the client, to the studio to fine tune the design and to see the workshop that will be creating their piece.
There are some constraints and design standards that needed to be taken into consideration, for example when spacing spindles the gap between them should not exceed 100mm, to safeguard against younger people from putting their heads through. We also talked about the height of the bench and the width of the seat. The client wishes to upholster the bench with deep cushions on the seat and back, while also enabling sitting with the back cushions removed. It wasn’t until the visit that we were able to hone in on actual dimensions, with the process easier to visualise by actually sitting in existing furniture in the studio to get a sense of proportions, angles and form.
I painted the bench and finished off the spindles ahead of the meeting and sent through photographs of the design from various angles for them to get a sense of how the design is beginning to take shape. I’ll post some images of the finished model bench next…
