Carbon Activated Timber Bench is designed for public areas and is made from reclaimed wood planks. It challenges the notions of weight and stability. While the volume of the wood planks appears as seemingly massive blocks, they are only loosely connected and in an unstable state. Tiny threads of carbon fibres tie the massive blocks together to give them their stability. They also reinforce the blocks to even add strength to the wood planks.

Michael Budig is Assistant Professor in Architecture and Sustainable Design at SUTD, director of the REAL Lab for Research in Renewable and Regenerative Architecture and director of REACT Studio. His research is driven by computational design and fabrication, and the desire to provide innovative solutions for the decarbonisation, digitalisation and changing demographics in the built environment. He held academic positions at MIT, ETH Zurich / FCL Singapore, University of Applied Arts Vienna and University of Innsbruck, and he practised as an architect and principal of Moll Budig Architecture, a multi-disciplinary office on architecture, urbanism and design strategies in Austria.

The work is based on a design by the Architecture and Sustainable Design Pillar at the Singapore University of Technology and Design (SUTD) for Mapletree Investments. The design was started with the objective to design a functional installation from reclaimed timber planks from VivoCity shopping mall. The project culminated in the design of a bench that is permanently displayed at Mapletree Business City in Singapore.