THREE OF A PERFECT PAIR（APART TOGETHER BENCH Ⅱ）

This is one of two benches donated to the City of Matsuyama in 2020 by a committee of local tourism businesses. The gift marked two 65th anniversaries: the first in-house hot-spring baths at Dogo Onsen's inns, and the opening of the Matsuyama Castle Ropeway. Built by Iyo Takumi-no-Kai, a group of young craftspeople from the local building trades, it sits in the waiting area inside the ropeway station.

It was designed at the height of the pandemic that gave us the phrase "social distancing." Rather than forcing people apart, we wondered whether furniture could gently invite that behavior and create a comfortable sense of distance. The series, which we named APART TOGETHER, translates that single idea into two entirely different prototypes.

Here, two polygonal hardwood seats, one on each side, are joined by a black steel frame deliberately assembled in a random pattern. The seatless center tells people, intuitively and without any signs or partitions, that this is not a place to sit. The front edges of the two seats tilt slightly inward, so that two people sitting apart side by side naturally turn a little toward each other. Since the bench stands in a space people pass through, we gave it a dynamic composition that holds its own as an object even when no one is sitting on it.