Body Raft 2000 by David Trubridge

Body Raft 2000 is well on the way to becoming a furniture design classic. Its maker David Trubridge is one of a small number of New Zealand furniture designers, among them Humphrey Ikin, who are gaining international recognition.

Trubridge graduated from University of Newcastle upon Tyne, England, in 1972 with a degree in naval architecture (boat design). He then spent several years working as a forester on a private estate, while at the same time teaching himself woodworking and furniture-making skills. His pieces began to be exhibited all around Britain. They became so popular that examples were commissioned by the Victoria and Albert Museum, St Mary's Cathedral in Edinburgh, and the Shipley Gallery in Newcastle.

Then, in 1981, Trubridge and his wife sold up, bought a yacht, and set out with their two young sons on a seafaring adventure. They sailed the Caribbean Sea and Pacific Ocean, stopping to work in the Virgin Islands and Tahiti, then reached New Zealand late in 1985, and stayed here. At first they based themselves in the Bay of Islands, and later moved to Havelock North in Hawke’s Bay.

Trubridge began making furniture that was influenced by the nautical techniques and materials he'd come across on his Pacific travels. He created a series of chairs made like Polynesian outrigger canoes – light, flexible structures fastened together with string lashings. One of these, Canoe Chair, now graces the entrance foyer of the New Zealand Embassy in Tokyo.

In the late 1990s, Trubridge was visiting a boatbuilding yard in Auckland when some drawings for a racing yacht’s mast, made of overlapping strips of carbon fibre, caught his eye. His mind leapt to his naval architecture training and early experience making a cold-moulded hull for a racing yacht. Realising the lightness, strength, and stability of this technique, he experimented with applying it to furniture. He named the resulting chaises-longues Argo and Ra.

From these works, he developed Body Raft 2000 which, unlike its predecessors, is balanced on a curved base so that it can be rocked gently backwards and forwards. It resembles both a hammock, with all its associations of comfort and rest, and a traditional moriori waka puhara (reef canoe).

In April 2001, under the name ‘Pacific Edge’, Trubridge teamed up with two Australian designers, Ruth McDermott and Ede Wong, to exhibit work at the prestigious Milan Furniture Fair. ‘Pacific Edge’ attracted plenty of interest. The German magazine Design Report voted the team runner-up for its Best Stand award. And as for Body Raft 2000, famous Italian furniture magnate Giulio Cappellini snapped up the display example for his private collection and negotiated with Trubridge for manufacturing rights.  

Text originally published in Tai Awatea, Te Papa's onfloor multimedia database (2001).