Gradas

Who has never sat on the steps of a grandstand? That familiar image of people gathering spontaneously around a simple architectural structure is the starting point for Gradas, the Spanish word for grandstand.

UNS, the Dutch architecture studio founded by Ben van Berkel, reinterprets this urban typology and brings it indoors through a new seating family for Sancal. Gradas draws on the idea of collective seating as a social space, where form does not dictate a single way of use but instead encourages multiple ways of inhabiting it.

UNS’s design philosophy embraces the notion that objects can embody spatial and social qualities that extend beyond their function. In its XL version, Gradas expresses this idea through a stepped, multi-level configuration that promotes relaxed, intuitive, and informal interaction.