HansonLA have been Shortlisted for Seating – Chair Award in The International Design and Architecture Awards 2021.

Menhir 02, by Hanson LA, is a chair-like object that can be used in different ways. Located all around the European countryside, Menhirs are freestanding man-made rock monuments. Rough, over-scaled and mysterious, their use is not quite figured out, leaving the use open to interpretation. Originated by this idea of a sculptural object that its use is not pre-determined by the designer, the attempt of the design is to create a chair-like object that can be used in different ways.

“Menhir 02” is referring back to its ancestor, the rough, unfinished over-sized rock, therefore the materiality is very important as part of the design. “Menhir 02” is carved out of solid blocks of marble using cutting-edge technologies of modelling and fabricating. The two different treatments on the two sides, create these contradictions between rough and smooth, friendly and unfriendly. The back of the object is highly textured with a linear surface treatment that appears as rough and unfinished, while the inside is smooth and without texture, so the veins of the marble block are visible.

The height of the object signifies its location and creates visual barriers as human height. The low sitting area creates a high back but also makes the object directional. The directionality of the “Menhir 02″ creates connections and disconnections depending on the orientation of them. Unlike the original Menhirs, that are mostly alone freestanding in the middle of the field, ” Menhir 02″ is imagined as a family. Within a family of “Menhir 02” social opportunities emerge. Depending on the proximity between them, the objects can create a continuation between them, so two users can interact with each other, or moments of isolation when the “Menhir 02” are back to back.

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