HANNAH's winning “RRRolling Stones” modular seating to be unveiled at Socrates Sculpture Park

Design studio HANNAH, winner of the Folly/Function 2018 competition, will display their “RRRolling Stones” seating in Socrates Sculpture Park tomorrow evening, July 12. The Folly/Function competition is an annual juried contest engaging architects to design and build a project for public use at Socrates Sculpture Park in Long Island City, New York. This year's competition asked entrants to propose movable outdoor seating for the park.

The winning outdoor modular seating system by HANNAH was made from 3D-printed concrete at the Cornell Robotic Construction Laboratory in Ithaca, New York. Executed in layers of a special cement mixture reinforced with nylon fibers, the seats’ striated surfaces reveal their incremental manufacturing process.

The studio experimented with layering different reinforcement materials between printed concrete layers for strenght. After several variations the studio landed on using #4 steel rebar reinforcement. This altered their design as rebar needs to be surrounded on all sides with several centimeters of concrete.

The team fabricated these rebar profiles then printed the concrete around the rebar layer by layer. The center was filled with gravel to support cantilever surfaces and maintain the form. After the forms were dry they removed the gravel on the inside and painted one side of the chairs leaving the rest of the surface uncoated.

Their uniquely fabricated design represents a balance between safety, aesthetics, and flexibility to be on display in the park for visitors to enjoy. The chair's opening reception will feature a discussion by HANNAH's Leslie Lok and Sasa Zivkovic along with a live 3D printing demonstration in the park. Following the demonstration, the Park will present its monthly Jazz Series with live jazz outdoors.