Started from shoring scrap off the side of the road left from construction site, added 1" steel angle support structure and worked on for 9 Days over the course of almost a year...Life...
A project that started as the logical next step after the stool but became another beast. Starting with construction scrap all I knew was it needed to be a bench and somehow be supported with a steel structure that would both be structural expressive and light while adding interest and additional purpose.
It was an organic process, the first key design idea was the need of a planter integrated into the seating. I used scrap 1/8" steel plate to form this. I tried to maintain size and proportion of the wood members and came up with a form that would lift a bit of the bottom panel in order to create a break for drainage and division between planting and misc use.
The back of the bench needed to complement the seat and be of similar proportion. Given this criteria I decided to splice the angle into the wood members and extend the frame beyond to create an open frame. This served to create both a better proportioned bench as well possibly be a frame work for something to grow onto.
Legs and support were by far the hardest and most frustrating aspect to this project. I initially wanted to mimic the structure I used on the stool but I soon realized this was not going to work without ruining its proportion. There was also an issue of back span and counter balancing and supporting the sloping back as I wanted the legs to continue in the same angle as the back. In the end I came up with the solution of extending the legs so that they could be planting into the earth and the bench would them be a garden feature and seat for reading and relaxing. The flexibility of the steel legs enables a nice rocking motion while sitting and reading.
As a result of the nature of this product I thought it would be appropriate to leave this bench unfinished and let it age and rust.
