See more objects with the tag curving form, furniture, seating, outdoors, industrial, extruded.

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Object Timeline

  • We acquired this object.

2008

  • Work on this object began.

2015

2024

  • You found it!

Extrusions

This is a Extrusions. It was designed by Heatherwick Studio and Thomas Heatherwick and collaborator: Haunch of Venison. It is dated 2008. Its medium is extruded electroless-nickleplated aluminum.

Can you squeeze a chair out of a machine, the way you squeeze toothpaste out of a tube?
Extruded aluminum, commonly used for double-glazed window frame systems, is made by squeezing heated metal through a shaped hole, or die. Intrigued by the warped lengths that occur during this process, the studio sought to make seating, formed in single extrusions, that makes imperfection part of the design. The Heatherwick team worked with an Asian factory whose extrusion machine, used to make aerospace-industry components, can exert 11,000 tons of pressure. The result is a series of seats in which straight, clean lengths contrast beautifully with raw, disfigured ends.

It is credited Courtesy of Heatherwick Studio.

  • Plank Furniture
  • olive, ash, metal.
  • Courtesy of Heatherwick Studio.
  • HSP.04
  •
  • Spun
  • spun metal.
  • Courtesy of Heatherwick Studio.
  • HSP.22

This object was previously on display as a part of the exhibition Provocations: The Architecture and Design of Heatherwick Studio.

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<ref name=CH>{{cite web |url=https://collection.cooperhewitt.org/objects/85006447/ |title=Extrusions |author=Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum |accessdate=23 April 2024 |publisher=Smithsonian Institution}}</ref>