The artist's apprentice

South African designer Laurie Wiid van Heerden creates a striking bench for the Southern Guild Collection to be exhibited at the upcoming Design Miami/Basel.

Cape Town-based designer Laurie Wiid van Heerden creates a striking new bench for the Southern Guild Collection to be exhibited at the upcoming Design Miami|Basel.

Laurie Wiid van Heerden of Wiid Designhas designed and manufacturer a striking bench "Untitled (After W.B)" that celebrates the designer’s love of working with wood.

The design was inspired by the work he has done with renowned South African artist and sculptor Wim Botha. Wiid van Heerden has been working part-time as the artist’s assistant for the past three and half years, while also running his own design studio.

"This piece is based on the techniques I learnt through working for the artist Wim Botha," says Wiid van Heerden. "The construction techniques employed in the creation of this bench have been developed and tailored over years; I wanted to represent this within this particular piece."

Each timber component is hand machined and fitted with careful consideration to present the "energy" or "movement" of the piece. The main source starts with intricate timber joints, which creates a cluster of sharp bevelled angles. This source then starts to breakdown into lines and facets spreading through the length of the bench.

The bench is fabricated from a 3m long, 5mm thick electro-galvanised mild steel top, 4.5mm stainless steel legs with a durable ferro-grade black powder coat, black patina stainless steel fittings, with in-house manufactured cladded timber elements and finally finished in a durable satin clear lacquer.