STOOP bench

Stoop, a public bench with multiple seating levels, allowing people to sit in a way that is less prescribed, more flexible and more social. Looking at locations where there is no bench available and people still sit, doorsteps, handrails and stairs function as a seat. As a reference we pictured in mind a famous photograph: A Great Day in Harlem, taken by Art Kane in 1958. It shows a gathering of all the famous jazz musicians from the 20th century, posing on -indeed- a stoop. Waiting in front of your friend’s house on a stoop in Brooklyn, posing with a tourist group on the Spanish Steps in Rome or having a picnic on the steps of the Sydney Opera House, we decided to incorporate the universal idea of using stairs as a sitting object, into our design of a bench. A stepped bench with a triangular plan to allow a placement that not only serves as a bench, or table-bench, but functions as well as an urban auditorium. Stoop serves as the ideal object on which the father watches the football game of his son and is surrounded by his friends, an important meeting takes place at work and right after you have lunch on it with your colleagues. It will be installed on schoolyards and at universities, to hang out with friends or to open up a laptop to prepare your next class. And of course, it will stand out on squares and streets all over the world