This Bench has Legs

For this year's London Design Festival STORE has been working with Attua Aparicio and invited designers to develop an educational program for local state school students aged 14-18 to design and prototype a new public bench for Camden using local waste materials from King’s Cross. Across four After School Clubs, under the guidance of designer Attua Aparicio, students explored modularity with Livia Lauber, glass with Dawn Bendick, plastics with James Shaw and aluminium with Marina Dragomirova. This culminated in a summer school run by Attua and Oscar Lessing where students worked alongside local industries transforming their ideas into a bold modular piece of public furniture. The project raises awareness of green design technologies and the circular economy, while also exploring local production and sustainable solutions for public infrastructure. The bench and the corresponding exhibition invite the public to discover the research process behind the furniture design, try the seating, and celebrate the creativity of young local designers. Beyond education, the project fosters collaboration with community groups and industry partners from manufacturers and suppliers to designers and engineers. For STORE, the bench is a commercial ready design able to directly support future After School Clubs. For the council, it offers a pioneering model of co-design with young creatives. STORE’s free art, design and architecture After School Clubs give pupils from state schools the opportunity to take their ideas from imagination to reality through research, conception, design, prototyping, manufacture and retail. By placing young people at the centre of public space design and linking them with industry, this initiative empowers them to shape their local environment while gaining the skills and confidence to pursue higher education and careers in design, engineering and architecture. STORE is keen to expand its work with councils beyond workshops, addressing wider design challenges where greater social impact can be achieved through more community-driven approaches to procurement. At a time when local authorities face enormous budgetary pressures, STORE’s approach demonstrates how modest investment can have significant benefits for young people and their communities. In the longer term, this work points towards new models of collaboration with local councils.