In addition to buildings, SANAA has also made a name for itself with a series of designs which have a pleasingly emblematic character which are usually connected to a built project involving the architects. One such design is the organically shaped bench called Flower which Vitra added to its portfolio in 2010. The piece, which was designed in 2001, was first seen in a temporary garden café at the 7th Istanbul Biennale, and in a children’s library (also designed by SANAA) in Toyo Ito’s Mediathek in Sendai. Later, the bench was used in many varied and important SANAA projects: at the Museum of Contemporary Art in Kanazawa (2004), and in the temporary Serpentine Pavilion in London (2009), where the bench formed an exciting dialogue with the surrounding architecture. When it was decided that the bench would be used at the Learning Centre at the EPFL, SANAA and Vitra decided that the design - which had before then only been manufactured in small quantities - was ready to go into production.
