Hyomen

HYOMEN - Bench

In several projects Rasmus Fenhann has been experimenting with surfaces and how they can change appearance when the daylight changes. Subtle patterns can disappear in some types of light and in the same time they can be very tactile when you touch them.

Hyomen means surface in Japanese and in Fenhann’s HYOMEN bench is inspired by a Japanese technique called “Naguri”, where identical recesses are cut with an axe to cover an entire surface.  Only a few craftsmen in Japan are able to perform this difficult technique.

The idea for Fenhann’s HYOMEN bench is to create a surface with the same type of tactile properties, created using digital tools. He discovered that the surface is actually formed by a hexagonal soap bubble geometry that occurs when a series of spherical cavities are adjacent to each other.

‍

‍

‍

‍

‍

‍

‍

Process

The bench consists of a 75 mm solid oak plank that has been shaped with a CNC milling machine to get a lenticular profile. The top and bottom are then machined with spherical cavities forming the hexagonal pattern. Subsequently, the entire surface is hand scraped with curved scrapers and sanded several times with a curved sanding block.

The project was supported by the Danish Art Foundation.

The CNC milling was done @The Danish Art Workshops in Copenhagen.

‍