New school of public furniture

What’s cool for school?

Architecture and design studio Hello Wood has created a line of unconventional outdoor furniture with smart functions for schools and universities. The sleek pieces of solid wood furniture have been installed at four educational institutions, where they also serve as a community space. 

The outdoor furniture designs, commissioned by MVM Hungarian Electricity Private Limited Company (MVM), reimagine the genre of public sculpture by including smart functions powered by renewable energy. According to Hello Wood co-founder, Dávid Ráday, the purpose of exciting and innovative design is to turn articles of everyday use into loveable objects. MVM decided about the distribution of the pieces by way of a tender open to educational institutions. The call received close to 600 bids.

„The cool lines of the Fluid Cube and the City Snake were cut from sawn blocks of wood using CNC technology, which allowed us to minimize the waste,” explained András Huszár, Hello Wood co-founder. In consideration of their outdoor placement and desired lifecycle, the structures were built of larch, a highly durable wood type that takes on a natural grey patina with time. The expansion joints that prevent the cracking of the wood also play a role in shaping the character of each piece of furniture. They house the mood lighting, which slices up the solid shapes with strips of light using solar power. The integrated USB sockets, WiFi hotspot, and lighting are all powered by the shock resistant solar panels developed by the Hungarian brand Platio.

The City Snake is a modular structure; its elements are variable to fit the given site. The Fluid Cube is a fixed unit with solar cells swimming between the layers of its tempered glass top. This transparent roof blocks rain, but lets the sunlight through. Users can stretch out along the shape of the City Snake, while the openings of the Fluid Cube are designed so more than one unit can be lined up side by side.

The 4 pieces of outdoor furniture (2 of each design) were distributed in the frame of a tender by MVM. The jury selected the winners based on a complex system of criteria, including the characteristics of the site, the number and means of students, and the creativity of the individual bids. 

Credits

Client: MVM Hungarian Electricity Private Limited Company (MVM)
Designed & built by Hello Wood
Chief designers: András Huszár, Péter Pozsár, Dávid Ráday
Project designer: Csaba Bányai, Gellért Ollé
Architects: Dániel Kiss, László Mangliár
Photos: Zsuzsa Darab & MVM
Video: MVM

Press release: 2019 October