With a background rooted in healing architecture and a practice that bridges function, emotion, and aesthetics, designer Lise Vester is interested in how design can gently shift our mindset. With the Dream View Bench, she explores how a simple gesture, looking up, can become a pathway to well-being.

“I was thinking a lot about how we spend our days in autopilot – always on, always forward. Dream View is a deliberate interruption to that rhythm.” – she says.

Originally developed during her studies in London, Dream View Bench emerged from personal reflection. “I had just moved to London when COVID hit,” Vester recalls. “That time brought up a lot – stress, isolation, mental health challenges across society. I realized how design could nudge behavior, help us see things differently.”

The concept also echoes ideas from Cognitive Behavioral Therapy, which Vester was personally exploring at the time. The project began with a simple, expansive question: How can furniture support mental well-being?

Soft in shape but industrial in material, the bench is made from a single bent sheet of brushed stainless steel. Vester first carved the shape in the wet sand on the beach near her parents’ house where she grew up—an intuitive gesture that set the curve and proportions. The choice is both aesthetic and symbolic: durable for outdoor use, yet subtly reflective, catching the shifting colors of the sky. This blend of permanence and change mirrors the piece’s intent—a grounded structure that encourages moments of lightness and reflection.

“I wanted something that feels sculptural but also welcoming,” she says. “People think it has a hard surface, but when they sit, they’re surprised, it adapts to them.”