Wjerk.

Wjerk is a climate design studio run by Kristian Bjørnard and a revolving cast of collaborators. We design for the welfare of all life. We value sustainability, open access, transparency, collaboration, social justice, and pointing culture toward a future where we operate a still hospitable spaceship earth … We can't solve climate change without social change — nay — everything change!?

Chair-ness patch icon: an abstract wireframe diamond suggesting the idealized structure of a chair

Chair-ness

An ongoing collaboration with Christopher Attenborough: one chair, one work session, whatever's left in the shop — every week.

A chair: a designed object for sitting. Its essential qualities, regardless of style or material:

Function
Support a seated body.
Structure
A surface to sit on.
Intention
Provide respite.

Craftspeople have been trying to realize the idealized, perfect chair out of bent wood, plastic, metal tubing, textiles, and stones for centuries. Chris and Kristian continue this legacy with whatever is lying around.

The rules

Chris Attenborough and Kristian Bjørnard make a chair a week — found materials, whatever's leftover in the shop. Three guidelines, no exceptions: it has to be functional, it has to be safe, and it has to be finished in one work session.

Where to find them

The chairs live at Union Brewing Taproom in Baltimore. Come see them in person. If you can't, buy this patch — a semiotic signal for chairness you can wear wherever you are, that idealized form that appears in your head the instant someone says the word "chair."

In the shop

This project is still going — a log of individual builds will grow here week by week. First entry: the mark itself.

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