[ Ryder Architecture ] The Janus Chairs

Designer: Ryder Architecture
Installation: summer 2009
Client: Kielder Partnership
Structural engineer: Edward Bird Associates
Planning supervisor: Grit and Pearl
Main contractor: Ryder / Norbuild
Subcontractors and suppliers: Technosolutions / Northern Fabricators

Janus Chairs was created as one of six sculptural shelters at Kielder Water & Forest Park, northern Europe’s largest man made lake and England’s largest forest.

The three one piece chairs (H2.3mxW1.2mxL2.3m, H2.7mxW1.8mxL3.1m, H3.3mx W2.4mxL3.8m) can be rotated toward a favourite view, into the sun, away from the wind or toward each other to form a family group.

They are made from laminated Douglas fir from the Scottish borders with polished stainless steel backs. Facing inward they are the closed bud of a flower, rotated outward they come into full bloom.

On approach, and when seen from other positions around the lake, they are one sculpture, their different but related forms providing a constantly changing composition depending on their relative positioning.


from  contemporist