Serpentine Postbox
London | 2019
Serpentine Postbox
London Design Festival
Studiomama was chosen as one of 10 design studios to collaborate with creative leaders from London's cultural institutions and create an object of personal relevance from American red oak for the London Design Festival. Collaborating with Hans Ulrich Obrist, the artistic director of the Serpentine Galleries, Studiomama designed a postbox for the museum visitors to share their experiences.
Designing a Postbox
Collaborating with Hans Ulrich Obrist, the artistic director of the Serpentine Galleries, Studiomama designed a postbox for the museum visitors to share their experiences.
Experimenting in our wood workshop, we designed and made a playful postbox in two sizes, one for outside the gallery and a smaller one for the bookshop. The post boxes were clad in fluted and oiled American red oak provided by the American Hardwood Export Council (AHEC), created by using a spindle moulder on individual pieces of oak – which were then glued together, with the help of craftspeople at Benchmark.
The oversized ‘mouth’, designed to highlight the purpose of the postbox, was created from a CNC-cut block of red oak, and the top is flat so that people can lean on it as they write their postcards by hand.
CLIENT: Serpentine Gallery
DESIGN: Studiomama
CARPENTER: Benchmark
PHOTOGRAPHY: Petr Krejci
‘We see fewer postboxes now in public spaces than when I was a kid and I wanted to bring one back,’ said Obrist. ‘We have 1.2 million visitors a year at the Serpentine so it will be a very public postbox.’
– Hans Ulrich Obrist