After 11 seasons as a defensive end in the NFL, during which he made it to three Pro Bowls and won Super Bowl XLVIII with the Seattle Seahawks, Michael Bennett hung up his jersey in 2020 and began a vastly different chapter. Subsequently graduating from the Heritage School of Interior Design, the Louisiana native is now pursuing an architecture degree at the University of Hawaii (where he is currently based) while building his burgeoning furniture design firm, Studio Kër.
Bennett always had a proclivity for design, but founding his studio propelled the evolution of his work, which emphasizes sacred, communal spaces and spatial justice. When it comes to scale, he considers “the Black body and proportions and geometry. Usually things are not formed for our bodies, so I think about material that explores that.”
Two versions of Studio Kër’s Paw-Paw dining chair
Kër means “home” in Wolof, a language spoken in Bennett’s ancestral country of Senegal. “For me, as an African American, home is everything,” he reflects. “So [it’s important] having a studio that’s focused on products and design that is one with nature, family, and community.”
Each piece in the collection tells a story of the African diaspora, leaning on culture rather than simply mimicking natural forms. Take the Mo-Mo table—a circular piece crafted in African Sapele with a center turntable—which represents the love and stability of Black matriarchs. “When I think about the Mo-Mo table, I think about playing Al Green’s Love and Happiness and the smell of cornbread and collard greens,” he says. “It reminds me of Sunday dinners, what it is to be African American, what it means to be rooted in something powerful [like] family.” Underscoring the concept is Paw-Paw’s chair, which exists in conjunction with Mo-Mo, embodying the idea that forms come into their holistic power when congregated together.
Bennett’s vision extends beyond his own studio by way of education and activism, through which he aims to “create a pipeline of future thinkers.” In 2021, he made an endowment to the Rhode Island School of Design to support students from low-income backgrounds pursuing creative arts degrees. “We can’t wait for white America to solve the broken sidewalk in our community,” he says. “We have to give a voice to those who have great ideas about fixing our communities and give them the tools to create new frameworks.” He continues to make an impact through organizations including the Rebuild Foundation, Mass Design, Humble by Design, and Champions of Change, a community-serving foundation he formed alongside two other former NFL players, Doug Baldwin Jr. and Cliff Avril.
Bennett is now working on a new Studio Kër collection slated to launch at the end of this year as a mixture of existing forms and new concepts. Ultimately, his pieces ”are deeply connected to the stories of our ancestors,” he says. “It’s the opportunity to explore the past and engage in the future with objects that live in the present.”
Da Blocks No. 1 and 2 represent primordial forms shaped by African and African diaspora cultures
This article originally appeared in HD’s April 2024 issue.
