Benjamin Hubert and his studio Layer have designed Bang & Olufsen's sculptural Beosound Balance speaker, which has a two-part structure made from wood and textile.
The Beosound Balance speaker features a cylindrical top half wrapped in 3D-knitted wool and a base crafted from solid timber.
The shape and materials are meant to evoke the feeling of domestic objects and furnishings more than technology, in line with the trend for "soft" gadgetry that blends into the home.

Layer describes the two-part shape as one that "disrupts the monoblock format of most speakers in the market", with the wood base appearing like a plinth for an artwork or a vase.
But the design also speaks to how the object functions ? the heavy wood contains the bass speaker, while the lighter-looking fabric cylinder contains the mid- and top-end speakers.
The omnidirectional bass driver is positioned vertically in the timber block and topped with a metal mesh dish, perforated in a Fibonacci sequence ? a series of numbers that are created by adding up the two numbers before it.
The bass reflects off the metal, "maximising its acoustic potential and providing a room-filling, low-end rich sound," according to Layer.

"With Beosound Balance for Bang & Olufsen, we wanted to create a sculptural interior object for the home, while still offering the performance of high-end audio equipment," said Hubert.
"The pure, geometric volumes are driven by the acoustic ...