Hollow Core, 2025

Hollow Core Bench, 2025

Commissioned by Chelsea College of Arts, University of the Arts London, Hollow Core (2025) forms part of a growing family of colour-responsive interior objects developed within Jacob Walls’ ongoing material research. Conceived as a sibling work to the Pangolin series, the bench continues his investigation into embodied interaction, thermochromic surface treatment, and adaptive material systems.

For Hollow Core, Walls shifted his methodology by allowing reclaimed factory waste foam to dictate the formal outcome of the piece, rather than imposing a predetermined structure onto the material. This process-driven approach foregrounds the inherent behaviour, density variations, and irregular geometries of the foam itself. Offset junctions, surface inconsistencies, and structural asymmetries are not concealed but embraced, becoming integral to the character and identity of the work.

The resulting bench resists uniformity. Each composition is shaped by the unique conditions of the reclaimed material, ensuring that every iteration exists as a singular, one-of-one object.