Avenue's 'Design Inside the Box' Competition: Hoodoo Stool

Hoodoo Stool

Inspired by the Alberta landscape, the hoodoo stool has an organic look that’s both eerie and awe-inspiring

Watch the Hoodoo Stool Video

What does it mean to be Albertan?

Five years ago, that question led John Greg Ball to Drumheller to explore the hoodoos, the surreally shaped sandstone pillars that are an iconic part of Alberta’s landscape.“A lot of designers tend to focus on the international market and make objects that appeal to a mass audience with really no meaning or story to them,” Ball says. “My intent was to stay in Alberta and make a series of objects that relate to who we are and where we are from.”

With that in mind, Ball headed to Drumheller with designing buddy Shoko Cesar to snap pictures and sketch the hoodoos. Since then, the design duo has produced a number of award-winning hoodoo-inspired lamps, ranging in size from six to 12 feet in height.

“That’s really where it all started,” Ball says. “Our intent was to do just one lamp, but that exploded into a whole bunch of other projects.”

The latest spin-off is the hoodoo stool. The stool is made from several sheets of corrugated plastic that have been laminated together to give it an organic look. The stool’s subtle layers suggest the varied tiers of the earth’s natural sediment. And a coloured florescent light at its core emits an eerie glow that makes it look like soft translucent wood when it’s turned on.

For Ball, who also teaches mechanical design technology at SAIT Polytechnic, the stool marks only the latest iteration of hoodoo-inspired furniture that he plans to pursue. “An idea is just that — an idea, until you go and do something with it to make it happen,” he says. “I’m going to explore all of these ideas further.”