Maybe it’s a European initiative but when i was at school the thought of collaborating with a well established furniture manufacturer seemed like an impossibility. The students at The Design Academy Eindhoven however have achieved just that with Dutch manufacturer Leolux. Their pieces will be on show from September 26th to October 4, 2009 at Woonbeurs
The Sputnik Springer chair by design group Ampersand reinvests a D.I.Y sensibility to the humble seat. Assembly is simple and all the associated nuts and bolts you find with other such pieces are replaced by beautifully polished oak pegs. Formally it harks back to the kind of craftsmanship you may find on early Herman Miller pieces while still maintaining a very contemporary silhouette.
The Loom chair by Matteograssi is the result of research undertaken by Franco Poli into coach hide, one of the worlds oldest materials “LOOM is proof of how a two-dimensional surface like a piece of coach hide, with holes in the right places, can take on the shape of a niche or a three-dimensional recessed area with many ergonomic properties normally associated with fabric, such as coolness and breathability, adaptation to the human body, controlled elasticity and - last but not least - transparency …”
Religious connotations aside, the Cross Lounge Chair from Per Emanuelsson & Bastian Bischoff radically alters the typical Chaise. The combination of Solid and mesh is perfectly balanced by the uniformity of colour and would present a dynamic silhouette in any space.
The Lockheed Chair by Riot + Sollier is like the orphaned child of my two favourite chairs. Benjamin Riot and Valentin Sollier drew their inspiration from the iconic Eames DSW chair and more recently, Konstantin Grcic’s Chair One. By infilling the lattice work of Grcic’s and reinterpreting the eiffel base of Eames, the lockheed chair shares the endearing features of both its parents.
The last post got me thinking about Konstantin Grcic’s latest Monza chair for Plank. It seems at first glance to be quite uncharacteristic of the designers work, yet upon closer inspection shares a similar industrial quality to his other pieces. Conceived as a simple wood construction based upon the classic Scandinavian model, Monza differentiatesitself through the additional plastic back piece. The stark contrast of the two materials creates a modern interpretation of what is otherwise a simple, utilitarian chair.
Have you ever stopped to imagine what your brain looks like? If my head is ever opened to the public I hope my brain resembles this polished masterpiece by Richard Hutten. The Cloud Chair sees the progression of Hutten’s research into the use of basic forms, culminating in this limited edition polished aluminum piece.
The Pleats Pleats sofa by Imaginary Office fetaures a series of woven, fabric covered polyurethane foam pieces wrapped around a stark white frame. Simply by playing with scale and colour they manage to change a simple craft technique into something special.
Continuing on with the thought of making something remarkable from everyday objects we have White Billion Chairs by Tina Roeder. Rather than creating something new from an established craft technique like our previous post, Roeder manipulates a ubiquitous white outdoor chair. Through the process of drilling approximately 10,000 holes in each piece she manages to elevate the status of this simple object to that of a limited piece of art.
Sometimes there’s a classic style of chair that will always make you nostalgic whenever you see it. In the case of Slim by Harri Korhonen for Finnish manufacturer Inno thats just what happened. This piece presumably has a distant cousin at my grandmothers house in Wanganui, all be it a dusty old vinyl one. This new version however sports a crisp white frame, offset by the brilliant green upholstery and even comes in a stackable version without arms.
