The Flatland Horse by Studio Deng reinterprets the equestrian monument as a set of eight functional horse ‘doubles’ that visitors can climb, touch, sit on, and pass through. The project disassembles the equestrian statue into eight parts. The monumental horse itself is shaped through countless design revisions, with individual body parts selected and assembled into the final official figure. Studio Deng separates these elements into individual plywood silhouettes, each retaining one body part in soft volume while taking on a public function such as a bench, seat, table, gate, slide, mirror, pavilion, or toy.
Gate Horse framing the ever-changing activity of Lake Union and the people around it | all images ©Seattle Design Festival
Birch plywood and chenille give horses a soft, modular form
For the 2026 Seattle Design Festival, themed IN[FLUX], Studio Deng was selected to build and exhibit two of the doubles at Lake Union Park. Gate Horse forms an archway from separated plywood profiles, framing a passage and views of the Seattle skyline through the horse’s negative space. Slide Horse uses the structural logic of a bridge, with a plywood deck spanning four leg frames between a staircase and slide. Its lowered head forms the slide, while the mane becomes a side barrier.
Both installations translate the equine body into flat plywood planes that become more abstract at close range. A selected body part is given volume with brown chenille stretched over a waffle-like framework of half-inch foam core panels attached to the plywood. The textured textile suggests the form of a mane or muscle while adding a softer surface to the structures.
The horses were built from ¾-inch, 13-ply birch plywood, cut and sanded by the design team. Slide Horse was assembled in three units using nails, bolts, and L-brackets for quick installation. After the festival, both structures were unbolted, flat-packed, and reassembled in a courtyard in Issaquah, east of Seattle, allowing the temporary installations to continue in a new setting.
people of all ages sliding down Slide Horse, with the Space Needle in the background, immersed in a horse playground Gate Horse framing the Seattle skyline side view of Gate Horse, with a paper-cut feelingplywood silhouettes form the primary structure of the horse doubles
children sitting on the ridge of Slide Horse and sliding down
Gate Horse forms an archway from separated plywood profiles
a child interacting with the soft chenille leg brown chenille stretched over waffle foam core and attached to plywood to mimic the horse leg’s specific geometry
project info:
name: The Flatland Horse
designer: Studio Deng | @studio_deng_
design team: Meichen Wang, Yijia Xu, Qicheng Wu, Chen Yang, Fan Wu, Yangyi Li, Hanlin Cai
fabrication support: Brad McGuirt & North Ballard Chop Shop
organizer: Seattle Design Festival | @seadesignfest
location: Lake Union Park, Seattle, Washington, US
designboom has received this project from our DIY submissions feature, where we welcome our readers to submit their own work for publication. See more project submissions from our readers here.
edited by: Christina Vergopoulou | designboom
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