The Vancouver-based creative studio Zenga Bros has created a series of furniture pieces that convert into skate ramps, rails and quarter pipes as a “radical way to transform office space”.
Supported by the watch brand Swatch, the Skate Break Collection includes five furniture pieces—an oversized steel lamp and a boardroom table that converts to skateable pieces.
Designers and brothers Benny and Christian Zenga worked with skateboarder Andy Anderson to test and prototype the pieces which they displayed in an interactive exhibition in Vancouver earlier this year.
“Are there more radical ways that we could transform the office space?” asked Christian Zenga. “Skateboarding is one of the only acts that I do that’s like a meditation. It requires focus because it’s dangerous, but also, it’s a very creative thing. Unlike other exercise, skateboarding is like a form of play. So we asked, ‘What if you played during your lunch break’?”
The brothers used steel, pulleys, release pins, levers, and thick plywood to build two lounge chairs, a boardroom table, a desk, a lamp, and a small truck that opens in various combinations for skateboarding. The materials are durable enough to handle the “abuse” skateboarders put on objects and also provide a “retro” aesthetic.
“The aesthetics came out of having to follow transitions and things you could skate, but also the durability,” said Christian. “The plywood was intentional too; [we wanted] a retro, 1970s, cool, studio space.”
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The Lamp Ramp is a six-foot steel object resembling a floor lamp with a fanning shade and arched stand. Removing a release pin allows the shade to lean forward, eventually resting on the ground, creating a volcano ramp and rainbow rail.
The lamp ramp has large dumbells on it that act as counterweights, which the brothers said: “came out of quick, ‘fun’ manual prototyping that drove the project.”
The collection’s boardroom table, lounge chairs, and desk also fold open with the release of pins or latches. The Desk Ramp is a “standing desk” attached to a wooden wall unit backed by a large computer screen, pinboard, and shelving. A lever releases the desk, slides down a hidden track, and converts it into a ramp. The screen is protected by transparent plexiglass so that skaters can move across it up the wall.
The brothers also converted a small, electric orange truck into a mobile ramp for studio “transportation.” The Ramper Camper also contains a woodstove and a mini bookshelf. It’s part of a larger design concept by the pair to create a skateable “house truck” that can go into communities that lack access to skating.
“The idea was you could do a cross-country trip with a pro skater and go to small towns that usually wouldn’t have a skater show up because there’s no park,” said Christian. “So it was sharing and playing with communities that don’t get access to that.”
“We really want to encourage other people to mess around,” said Benny. “Skaters look at the world like this already; skaters look at things from another perspective. It’s a ‘what if’ dialogue —what would your studio look like?”
The Zenga Bros is a design-and-build studio based in Vancouver, Canada. Founded in 1999 by the Zenga brothers, a group of eight specializing in skills ranging from architecture and filmmaking to fabrication and heavy machinery repair.
Images by Gordon Nicholas/Zenga Bros.
