The Lazy Green Sandwich Bench is a stone iteration of a weekend project I created from wooden offcuts three years ago during the pandemic. This time, for The Farm Shop, we partnered with the local stone mason, located just three miles down the road from Grymsdyk Farm in Lacey Green.

For this I teamed up with my partner Selina Parr.

The Idea behind the benches is to attach the seat to a strong corner to form a momentum strong connection. This way there is no beam, but the parts form a kind of shell.

By folding the material back onto itself, we achieve the necessary structural integrity. The legs, tapering outward, lend the bench a silhouette reminiscent of a pair of pants and give it a somewhat animalistic appearance.

When translating the idea from wood to stone the material demands for some extra steps.

We used off-cuts from previous jobs of the stone mason. This way we could snoop around his left overs and chose and combine the nicest stones he had. Instead of choosing for one material we replicate the candy store experience we perceived when seeing his storage.

The bench becomes a kind of patchwork quilt and is unique every time you make it.

The stone slaps come mostly in 20mm thickness and are one sided in their finish. So it makes sense to glue them together back to back.

While stone can withstand significant pressure, it is less resilient to pulling forces. To address this, we incorporated a steel structure into the sandwiched seat, ensuring it can withstand tensile loads effectively.

With the combination of all those stones the bench will appear different from every angle. The hues of both the inner and outer legs will interact in unique ways as you move around the object.

Dimensions:

L = 1257 mm, D = 388 mm, H = 450 mm

Michael Schoner and Selina Parr

Engineering: Manja van der Worp

Execution: Stone Specialist

Steel: Toby Clayton

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cover photo by George Baggaley

2023