“Twin” Bench by Aaron Roberts and Kim Bridgland in American red oak

The Edition Office studio had designed some furniture pieces for a renovation project to a house in rural Victoria by Melbourne modernist architect, Paul Couch. The house was oriented around four water tanks, and the pieces were to sit within these re-purposed spaces. This bench is an extension of that series, designed as a seat for two that allows plenty of space for each. Aaron and Kim also admired a set of late 20th century photographs by German duo Bernd and Hilla Becher, who were highly influential photographers of industrial architecture. Interested in the structural language of timber water tanks, the pair moved away from creating form out of plastic materials, and investigated the process of assembly, in particular the aesthetic expression that comes from holding a curve against a straight piece of structure, and how joints might ‘slip past each other’. The back of this bench expresses that most clearly. 

Edition Office is a Melbourne-based practice established on 2016 by Kim Bridgland and Aaron Roberts who befriended each other while completing Masters’ degrees at RMIT University. Edition Office refers to the iterative nature of architecture practice, where each new project is calibrated and informed by what has gone before. Their projects are distinguished by their bold forms, a respect the powerful nature of the Australian landscape (both rural and urban), and for materials that ‘speak for themselves’.