“There’s something so generous about a bench,” says Susanna Beaumont, director of Design Exhibition Scotland. “[They] offer the possibility that someone can sit next to you, creating a kind of hospitality of the outdoors.” That ethos inspired Mount Stuart’s latest exhibition, commissioned by the agency, in which a group of homegrown talents designed and produced original benches for use throughout the expansive gardens surrounding the storied country house. From C.A. Walac’s undulating sculptural pieces made from scavenged scrap metal to Jesmonite and fiberglass seats in a mesmerizing marble pattern by Rekha Maker, each bench embodies the joy of sitting outside, basking in the outdoors, and pausing for moments of contemplation. Beaumont hopes for the benches can “act as prototypes to be replicated and to populate urban and natural spaces” across Scotland.