What do you get if you cross brutalism with skateboards?
LA architect and designer J. Byron-H's new line of stools draw on concrete buildings and skateboard decks
A little over forty years ago, the drained, concrete swimming pools of drought-stricken, southern California gave skateboarders such as Stacy Peralta the ideal environment to develop the modern skate techniques that now define the pastime.
This summer, the LA designer and architect J. Byron-H is repaying that debt to the hard stuff, with a series of brutalist stools that combine concrete with a rounded form remarkably similar to the modern skateboard deck.
His Concrete Stools are fashioned from glass-fibre reinforced concrete, are inspired by brutalism and skate culture, but come in a remarkably summery selection of pastel shades.
“The combination of a raw, permanent material with a lightweight colourful treatment and an anthropomorphic scalloped form re-inserts a sense of playfulness and control into a material often associated with weight, ruins or architectural brutalism,” says the designer (somewhat studiously, might we say). Anyway, one things for sure: you don’t want to try a rail grind with one of these.
For more on imaginative seating, get Chair, for more on brutalism order Atlas of Brutalist Architecture.