Halm Bench
- Fald Copenhagen
- Ida Krøyer
- Furniture
- 2024
Paper cord is a material Danish workshops have used for a century, and the reason is unglamorous: it is cheap, it is strong, it is comfortable without padding, and when it eventually goes it can be cut off and rewoven. Halm is built to make that last property as easy as possible.
The frame is solid ash, four members, mortised and drawn together with hidden bolts rather than glue. The seat rails carry a simple rebate rather than the usual driven nails, so the cord is wrapped and terminated into the rebate and can be released entirely with a knife. A new weave takes a competent hand about four hours and requires no workshop.
Proportionally the bench is set low and long — 400 mm high, 1400 mm across — because its actual job is boots rather than conversation. There is a shelf beneath it, a single ash board, deep enough for two pairs and no more; making it deeper turns a hallway into a store.
The frame's only decorative move is the taper on the legs, which begins below the seat rail and runs to a 22 mm foot. It exists because an untapered leg at this section reads as heavy from across a hall, and for no other reason.
Halm is offered in natural and in a smoked ash, with the cord in its own colour only.