banc d’essai

Test Bench. This 5th Banc d’essai edition highlights talents from Ésad Saint-Étienne by teaming them up with companies in the region. The research subject for this edition is "the public bench". Utilitarian and popular, rudimentary and elegant, the bench is an indispensable piece of furniture in our public spaces. Its presence in cities, in villages, alongside paths … invites us to take a break for a moment alone, to meet a lover, and chat to our neighbours…

Curator Éric Jourdan
Coordinator Nathalie Arnould

In partnership with Saint-Étienne Métropole

Banc d’essai has one of the become key features of the Biennale over the year. A veritable laboratory of urban design, a revealer of talent and a generator of innovation, this event has enabled some sixty companies and editors of urban furniture since 2015 to test their creativity and work with designers to develop new products that help to make public spaces more convivial. The different editions of Banc d’essai have generated numerous original items, which have become standards in urban furniture catalogues.

To tie in with the Biennale theme, Ressource(s), présager demain, the designers were invited to work with the resources of the companies they were teamed up with – whether production machinery or choice of materials –, and to find design, production management solutions for urban furniture with the aim of saving materials, increasing repairability, recyclability, modularity of usages, etc.

The 6 "public benches" produced can be seen on Place Waldeck Rouseau in Saint-Étienne. A second series of the same benches is installed in 6 of the municipalities of Saint-Étienne Métropole.