The ‘Ductal’ chair is a modular furniture system designed by H20 architects team in collaboration with Nicolas Sterling for the main square of Valenciennes in northern France.

Made from fibre concrete, the components can be configured to form stools, benches and chairs for public seating. The research focused on the investigation of five themes: minimal form, non-orientation, sculptural quality, flexibility and additive qualities. The visual simplicity of the basic module is reinforced by its materiality.

The thin shell of Ductal® fiber concrete – at once skin and structure – embodies the material’s inherent form. Thanks to games of assemblage, flipping and inversion the
bench becomes a game of correlations: at once stool, chair, bench, and meeting place. The Ductal chair has been an expe­rimentation with material properties, the fabrication process and geometry.