The stack of seven stools which form a tall column were produced by Formafantasma, the Milan-based design studio founded by Andrea Trimarchi and Simone Farresin. Ever since the duo graduated from Design Academy Eindhoven in 2009, Trimarchi and Farresin have pursued design as material research and through their practice they question the responsibility of the designer within wider society and the profession’s concern with the environment at a time of climate crisis.

The Bekväm stools question our relationship to wood and our understanding of wood as a sustainable material. The stools were first produced for Formafantasma’s exhibition Cambio which opened at the Serpentine Gallery in London in March 2020. Cambio looked at the history and future of the governance of the global timber industry, considering the designers’, producer’s, retailer’s and consumer’s role within this network. The stools formed part of the last section of the exhibition which focused on everyday consumer products. Here the stools served as a demonstration or 3D infographic making the value of timber explicit.

The Bekväm stool is easily recognisable by many as a product sold by Ikea at the relatively inexpensive price. However, the price gives little indication of the actual value we should place on a wooden object. 'Ideally each timber object should have a useful life that exceeds the life of the tree it is made from,’ explained Formafantasma of the project. It is widely known that trees store carbon from the air. The denser the wood, the more carbon it stores and the older the tree the longer that carbon is stored. The only time the tree releases its carbon is if the tree dies or if the timber is burned. As such, wooden objects are excellent carbon sinks. If the lifespan of a wooden object doesn’t exceed the age of the tree when it was cut, any positive impact of making in wood is lost. To demonstrate the long-term value that wooden objects have for the environment, the stools are arranged in ascending order of the age and density of the trees. Fast-growing beech sits at the bottom, while slow-growing walnut is at the top. Stacked on top of one another the stools also resemble the trunk of a tree.

This stack of stools is the second stack to be made by Formafantasma. It was made to feature in the first display of the Make Good: Rethinking Material Futures at the V&A in 2022 and will eventually form a part of the collection that speaks of design at a time of climate emergency.