Take a walk and bring your bench along.

The Bench is not just a seat; it's a metaphor for balance and reflection, openness and transition. As we view one in the distance along a forest path, it beckons us to come and sit. As we busily tidy up the house or yard, the bench allows us a momentary pause in our work. It bids us to enter the pleasant state of mind where you are still doing what you were doing a moment ago—but you are also in a momentary distance to it.

At Kaja Gam Design, we often use a beautiful and unique bench as a way to transition between rooms, to create focal points in the garden or as a centerpiece for casual conversation. The perfect bench may rarely be sat on—but as we come upon it, inside or in nature, it immediately conveys a sense of hospitality, calm and harmony.

Here are some of my favorites:

• Simple is good. The simplest shape for a bench is three pieces: two stumps and a log. Go a little further and you have something like this. Still with the simplicity of form, but with an eye for what a curve of a branch can do.
• Pick-up truck, a shotgun and a bench: Not quite the hunter's or biker's lodge bench, but the attitude of the creators is in it. Strong and bitchin'.
• Take a break from your chores: A seat or a step stool? Maybe both. I can picture this in the nook between two kids' rooms (a place to be quiet with Mom, tie your shoes or reach that top shelf).
• Open Plan: How to bridge between furniture groups in a long and narrow room, such as most lofts or living/dining room combinations? This stylish bench accommodates seating in both directions and will not block the rest of the room.
• For the birds: A bench for you while you feed them from your front porch.
• You gotta have park: Matthias Pliessnig's bench is as much sculpture as it is a bench. With curvy reedy steel he achieves both mass and lightness in a structure that is both as enticing to look at as to sit in.

Sit, relax and enjoy the last leaves of fall.

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