Heron Preston’s L.E.D. Studio has teamed up with Rishi Assar on the L.E.D. KARTN chairs, a project that turns reclaimed New York City road signs into furniture. The chairs continue a line of work that examines the city as a material source, following past collaborations with artists like Matt Pecina and Gustavo Barroso. L.E.D. Studio serves as the platform for this practice, which ties back to Heron’s ongoing approach of reclaiming and repurposing materials. The invitations for his FW23 NYFW show were made from trash found on the streets of New York.

The chairs are built from authentic city-issued signage that Rishi sourced locally: Stop signs, School Crossing signs, Detour signs, Speed Bump signs. The kind of signage New Yorkers and visitors recognise immediately. The aluminum signs and hinges were cut and hole-punched using an OMAX machine, a high-precision abrasive waterjet cutting system designed for complex metal parts. The pieces were then puzzled together in the HP studio, mixing and matching the cut parts to form each chair. Final assembly involved fastening solid rivets to hinges by hand using a professional air and hydraulic riveter.

Check it out below:

 

The L.E.D. KARTN chairs retail for $1,000 USD and will be available at Lichen through the weekend until Sunday 24 May, with remaining units available at ledstudio.com after the weekend.