Piet Hein Eek

The waste beam cabinet is beam family of the tree trunk cabinet, of which we made three. The cabinet looks like a pile of beams and has a geometric pattern, as opposed to the round trunk pattern. Continuing new insights mean that the way the body is made is a lot more elegant than the tree trunk cabinet. An interior cupboard is slid into an exterior cupboard, and the sides of plywood are covered by solid wood. In this way, the fixtures of the blocks of wood are kept out of sight, and the end grain of the plywood is finished. The measurements, the solution for the skirting, and the way the handle is concealed in the surface of the end grain timber, all these result from features of the beam. As so oſten is the case, the material guided the design.

he chunky upholstered beam bench that we’d made earlier for the chaotic set-up formed an intriguing image. I wanted to think up a variation of it for our own collection. Due to increased cuts in defence spending, and the withdrawal of American troops from Europe, there are regular auctions to be found selling army surplus. We have finally found the second-hand fabric for upholstering that we’ve long been searching for. We made the first enormous upholstered seats about fiſteen years ago, from old sails, which were almost impossible to find at the time. The fabric beams are stacked just as the wooden beams. Instead of being held together by wooden plugs and their own weight, the fabric beams are attached to each other at the sides by a kind of buttons. The shape of the beams has been adapted in comparison to the earlier seat, and a combination of qualities of foam rubber has been used to optimise the comfort of the seats.

This beam armchair was thought up for a single hotel room, bordering on the gas dome of the Westergasfabriek in Amsterdam. Instead of regarding the old listed industrial building stylistically as an entity, we make a series of colourful objects like smudges on the space, respecting it so that the space remains intact. A black beam armchair with accompanying beam bookcase forms one of the smudges in the plan. This green version with army fabric was made for the beam project.

The beam cupboards were originally created from the idea of using the cross beams, which hold the panels together, as hinge points as well. In applying that concept, a much more important principle emerged: the size of the beams is defining for all sizes, that’s to say the height, breadth and depth of the cupboard is defined by the breadth and thickness of the beams. The size and proportions of the cupboard can be affected by changing the amount of beams. It is not necessary to saw the beam lengthwise for any component part, it only needs to be shortened. This is important because there are oſten nails in the old wood. Because of the varying beam sizes, the cupboards are made one at a time, and fitted with hinges and closing system. The intention is to produce a range of cupboards in which, due to the variation in beams, measurements and choice of colour, no two are the same.