Designed by a youth group in Wealdstone, the Leg is a customisable modular furniture concept used to make public furniture for the local community, writes Rita Lobo
The Wealdstone Youth Workshop, from Harrow in North West London, worked with community regeneration agency Spacemakers and Silo Studios, over the past nine months to produce the Wealdstone Leg.
The leg is a a modular furniture component, manufactured in England, which can be used to create a range of stools, benches and chairs for use at temporary events in the forthcoming Wealdstone Square.
Esther Calinawan, Kayleigh Littlemore, Leo Harrison, Marina Marbella, Marius Dinu and Tanya Galia, were involved in every step of the process, from designing the Leg, to prototyping and testing. The Wealdstone Leg is now available for sale, with all proceeds going back into the project and to pay each of the young designers royalties for their work.
‘When choosing which material method to go for, we were told about the labour that had to go into them and the unit price since we had a fixed budget from the council,’ says Calinawan. ‘But this didn’t stop us being creative, in fact it made us explore more creative ways such as making models out of clay, metal wire, recycled objects and paper.’
Tanya Galia is one of the young designers
Part of the challenge was for the young designers to identify suitable materials, colours, and uses for the product. The Leg comes in a range of shades, which can be mixed and matched. As well as stools, and chairs, the Leg can be used as shelf bracket, and buyers are encouraged to adapt it or come up with their own uses for the object.
‘We looked at a variety of manufacturing processes, such as die casting, brake press folding and plywood bending before we came up with the idea of an injection moulded leg,’ says Harrison. ‘This creates a strong aesthetic, and means people can customise the furniture themselves, adding their own seats, backrests or parts as they please.’
‘The designing was such fun,’ adds Dinu. ‘We had a strict budget and we have looked at all sorts of materials and making processes. Eventually, we came up with a design for a multipurpose leg. The leg is injection moulded, and could be manufactured heavily. With the budget we had, we managed to design an multipurpose item which could help us to achieve the initial goal of 50 chairs plus many others for others to buy and use.”
Wealdstone Youth Workshop is part of a wider project by Harrow Council to create Wealdstone Square – a new public space at the centre of Wealdstone that can bring the community together. The overall project is led by architecture and urbanism practice We Made That, with graphic design by Europa.
The Wealdstone Leg is available to buy online at w-y-w.co.uk
