American architect Jerome Byron has created a series of colourful stools by pigmenting glass-fibre reinforced concrete and setting it in curved shapes.
Jerome Byron infused concrete reinforced by glass fibre, also known as GFRC, with various pigments to create the Concrete Stools in hues of blue, yellow, pink and purple.
He then placed the material, which he describes as "pigmented slurry", into a flat rubber mould where it was left to dry slightly before being curved over woodwork to create the U-shaped seating.
Byron chose to use GFRC in order to create a juxtaposition between shape and weight, and the material. The reinforced material enabled the architect to create slim pieces that are more lightweight than concrete.
"Cast and finished by hand, the works use a pigment infused, glass-fibre reinforced concrete (GFRC) which appears deceptively monolithic," he said. "They present a play of materiality by appearing at once smooth and rough, heavy and buoyant."
In addition to this, the pigment is intended to give the concrete a more playful look than it is usually associated with.
"The combination of a raw, permanent material with a lightweight colourful treatment and anthropomorphic scalloped form re-inserts a sense of playfulness and control into a material often associated with weight, ruins or architectural Brutalism," he added.
Other furniture collections have similarly played with concrete, like Bower Studios' Concrete Melt Chair, which has a pale concrete top draped over a metallic base, and a series of squashed-looking concrete benches by Thomas Musca and Duyi Han.
Concrete Stools, which Byron completed in 2018, includes three different size seats: a 55-pound bench, a 40-pound high stool and a 34-pound low stool.
Each can be made in the limited range of colour, although the finishes vary on each because the pieces are handmade.
Byron is an architect who received his masters from Harvard's Graduate School of Design in 2014, and then worked in offices of Francis Kéré, Barkow Leibinger and Tacklebox NY. He founded his studio, formerly known as J Byron-H, in Los Angeles in 2017.
His other projects include creating the decluttered nail salon Colour Camp in Los Angeles with industrial-style surfaces and pops of blue.
Photography is by Samuel McGuire.