Project // Furniture / Seating Landscape
Scope // All Phases
Size // 6 sqm
Client // Monika Grzymislawska
Consultant // n.n.
Location // Berlin
Status // Realised
Year // 2004 - 2006



The sitscape is a system that provides a customized seating landscape. The configuration of the sitscape is based on preferred positions of use and the dimensions of the users. As a “customized mass product” it accommodates different demands and forms within the same structural principle. The first version of this furniture piece was realized in a length of six metres for a client in Berlin. 

The form extends the usual use of a couch. The design is based on specific seating positions and smooth transformations between them. The preferred relaxing positions of the client are used to generate a “perfect fit” and provide familiar possibilities for relaxing. The transitional areas between these positions are undetermined in their use. They offer new and unexpected possibilities, which will be discovered and appropriated by the users.

The sitscape is one metre wide and “infinitely” long. This organizational system has a simple construction principle of vertical sections connected by metal elements which allow the configuration of different forms within this system. The sitscape will be sold by the “metre” and the costumers have the choice of various positions which can be combined in any sequence.

The main structural elements are the sections, which are digitally cut out of laminated wood. The connecting structure consists of aluminium spacers between the sections and metal thread rods that go through the sections. The rods are tightened by wing nuts and give the structural stability. Diagonal tension wires are spanned through the inner void of the sections and give the stability against the torsion forces. The most visible form generating elements take the main vertical loads while the hidden metal elements give the support for the horizontal and torsion forces. The sitscape therefore is in one direction massive and in the other direction light and almost dissolved.

The upholstery consists of a system of cushions that can be connected among each other and with the structure. Favorite zones will be defined temporarily or permanently. In this way the upholstery supports the flexible use and adoption of the furniture. 


Team: Wilfried Hackenbroich und Rainer Müher with Sandra Schneider, Jesko-Malkolm Johnsson-Zahn und Daniel Müntz