Notes on Design: Andu Masebo’s Tubular Chair

Notes on Design is a new series from Anima, which uncovers the stories behind prolific design icons – old or new – and the minds that create them. We discuss objects of prominence, how they’re made and the impact they will have on the world.

Combining influences from carpentry, metalwork and ceramics, the designs of London-based Andu Masebo are driven by “good ways of working”, characterised by a allusive process and his experience of making things. His Tubular Chair, constructed from three-inch stainless steel tubes and recycled chip rubber, draws inspiration from car workshops and small-scale mechanics in London, crafted with materials typically found in the automotive industry. He also collaborated with car exhaust fabricators to emphasise the origins of its making, as well as the skill involved in its production. In this Q&A with Ayla Angelos, Masebo delves into his creative process, design ethos and the challenges he faced in bringing the Tubular Chair to life.

Ayla Angelos: How did you get to where you are today?

Andu Masebo: While I would say my background is a combination of experience in carpentry, metalwork and ceramics, I learnt them all in very different ways. Ceramics was something I studied at art school in my early 20’s, then carpentry was something I picked up through work. It wasn’t until much later that I taught myself to weld, mostly through trial and error and watching videos online but it’s increasingly become quite central to my practice. 

Even though they're all quite different in their own technical ways, my approach to working with them can often be quite similar. By letting the methods that shape the material in question lead my design process, I tend to lean quite heavily on my accumulated experience of making things. A kind of tacit approach to working that is rooted in craft. I wouldn’t call myself a ‘crafts person’ but I understand that the best ideas I have often come from an understanding and respect for craft based knowledge.

What’s your design ethos and reasons for making?

Generally speaking, I’m interested in finding ways to shorten the imaginative distance between the process of making things and the way they can be understood by their eventual audience. I feel as though there's often a disconnect between the way we experience objects on a day to day basis and the conditions under which they come to be. My hope is that if I make things that have a stronger connection to the efforts that shape them, that they might be better cared for and less likely to eventually be thrown away. I often try to bring the voice of whoever is involved in making the work into the process of designing it but sometimes my approach can simply mean making things that can be easily understood so the viewer can imagine how they’ve come together 

What’s the story behind the Tubular Chair, why focus on the automotive industry?

Put simply, it’s what I found close to hand. Living and working in London, there aren’t many opportunities to have conversations in spaces where things can be made. It’s when I started to look for these spaces that I realised that car workshops and small scale mechanics could be a source for inspiration. I’m not a particular petrol head myself but I love the idea that if I know the right questions to ask, I can tap into a knowledge base that can give shape to my ideas.

Can you tell me more about the chair’s materiality?

For a long time, I knew I wanted to work with a car exhaust fabricator but I wasn’t entirely sure what the outcome could be. It takes a really high level of skill and expertise to build custom made car exhaust systems but the manufacturing constraints are a lot tighter then they would be if I was working with a dedicated furniture fabrication factory. It meant that the eventual chair was a negotiation of these constraints and a meeting point between my practice and their production processes rather than purely the work of my own. When it came to finishing details in the chair, I intentionally didn’t give any instructions as I wanted the language of exhaust fabrication to exist in the chair itself.

Made from three-inch stainless steel tubes used in the production car exhausts, the Tubular Chair is a result of conversations back and forth between car exhaust fabricators over a number of years. In order to utilise their focused expertise, the chair works around a set of machining limitations defined by the production of car exhaust systems. It was designed to the technical constraints of mandrel bent tubular steel and intentionally bears the hallmarks of its making process. The seat of the chair is made from recycled chip rubber often found in the automotive industry, which was cast around a metal plate and connected to the underside of the steel frame.

Can you run through the creative process?

My creative process often changes depending on the project and my level of expertise in the area that I’m working, but whatever the case I like to be as close to the processes and people shaping the work as possible. I want to know how the machine forms the material before I decide where the bends are placed in the design, and what it’s like to be the person finishing the object before I decide how it will be coated. I want there to be a sense of truth between how the object exists in the world and how it was made.

What challenges did you face during the design process and how did you overcome them?

I don’t think challenges ever go away but what I’ve come to realise that it's not about having good ideas, it's about having good ways of working. No one has a monopoly on the ideas themselves but, over the years, I’ve found that the designers I admire the most are less interested in clever ideas or shiny outcomes and are instead invested in the process of work itself.

How does the Tubular Chair compare to your previous works?

Some of the thinking that led to the Tubular Chair was developed in previous projects but I’m not particularly interested in exploring exactly the same territory over and over again. Having worked with a car exhaust manufacturer once and shaped a specific outcome together, I would be reluctant to do so again in order to imagine another. Instead I would maybe try to explore new spaces in order to imagine new directions entirely. 

I think as I develop in my work, there are certain strands that reappear but it's probably down to having similar approaches to coming unstuck when I find myself in a dead end, rather than that I set out to achieve the same ends.

What feelings do you hope to evoke with the chair, what’s the main goal? 

My main aim in designing the chair is to direct its audience towards something that I find fascinating. If it becomes an entry point for them to understand and respect a profession that I admire, then I feel as though my work is done. In order to reach these ends I intentionally did as little design myself as possible. I didn’t want my own design decisions to take centre stage but instead act as a platform for the work of the fabricator.

What impact do you hope the Tubular Chair will make on the industry? 

In the car exhaust manufacturing industry, most probably absolutely none. My hope is that the chair has had an impact outside the industry more than inside – that it might have made people think a little about the people that make things and the spaces in which they’re made.