Squashed-looking Concrete Bench By Thomas Musca and Duyi Han References Brutalist Architecture

Designers Thomas Musca and Duyi Han have cast reinforced concrete into furniture with chunky angles and geometric voids that take cues from brutalist architecture.

The collection is a collaboration between the two young designers who graduated from Cornell University in May 2019 and went on to found their own practices.Musca’s company Cassius Castings produces concrete furniture, while Han’s Doesn’t Come Out creates digitally rendered scenes, including the visualised The Saints Wear White mural that honours Covid-19 healthcare workers.

Musca and Han teamed their skills to design the angles, size and proportions that make the monolithic forms. They are intended to draw on the style of brutalist architecture, which emerged in Great Britain in the 1950s.

Each of the pieces is first modelled using digital software and then built as a basswood mould. Inside these, Musca and Han then pour and cast the forms using glass-fibre reinforced concrete.Designs include Rockito, which is intended as an abstract take on the traditional rocking chair. The design features a sharply curved seat decorated with eight voids of various sizes.