Nodding to the enigmatic artist Joseph Beuys, this layered industrial wool felt bench/ottoman creates a synthesis between fine art and design utilizing low-tech materials. The piece, designed by Chris Ferebee and Laurice Parkin of 521 Design, is currently included in the exhibition Fashioning Felt at the Cooper-Hewitt National Design Museum in New York.
Powder-coated steel and glass
April showers have brought May flowers and now is the ideal time to retreat to the outdoors and idle away spring's sunny afternoons. We've rounded up ten of our favorite benches that form the perfect places to perch.
Teak frame with WaProLace (polyethylene fiber) netting.
Radical Nature draws on ideas that have emerged out of Land Art, environmental activism, experimental architecture and utopianism. The exhibition is designed as one fantastical landscape, with each piece introducing into the gallery space a dramatic portion of nature. Work by pioneering figures such as the architectural collective Ant Farm and visionary architect Richard Buckminster Fuller, artists Joseph Beuys, Agnes Denes, Hans Haacke and Robert Smithson are shown alongside pieces by a younger generation of practitioners including Heather and Ivan Morison, R&Sie(n), Philippe Rahm architects and Simon Starling. Radical Nature also features specially commissioned and restaged historical installations, some of which are located in the outdoor spaces around the Barbican while a satellite project by the architectural collective EXYZT is situated off site.
