Braden White: Pallet Chair

Braden White - Pallet Chair, Repurposed Pallets, 2021

Braden White (Ngāti Kahungunu) is a creative builder, intrepid traveller, and former underwater hockey champ. Here are a few questions we asked him to share more about Braden and the chair he made for Manzana using an original 1974 design by Italian designer Enzo Mari.

Where did you grow up?

Te Whanganui-a-tara but found myself in Berlin.

What inspired this chair?

The inspiration was seeing such terrible furniture made from pallets and believing that by reusing the materials differently I could show the possibilities of the material.

What’s your next step?

Set design for a performance called xtanz with the dancer Katrina Bastian, hopefully with the levels it can still go ahead.

Thanks for turning terrible into comfortable! Thank you, Braden!

Enzo Mari designed the Sedia 1 self-assembly chair in the ’70s. It has since been a renowned design object produced and sold by Artek for roughly €1,250.

The chair features in Mari's book Autoprogettazione, which exemplifies a range of DIY furniture construction. Enzo Mari is a designer, thinker and provocateur who was determined to develop mass-produced objects without compromising beauty, comfort and design.

Braden White enhanced Mari's original design by making the chair slightly higher priced covering his labour time $300 + a $75 donation to Manzana totalling $375.

Want to buy one of Braden’s chairs? Reach out to Kaitiaki@manzana.org.nz