Luxurious and Sculptural Designs Change the Look of the Average Chair
Whether they’re stripping the furniture piece to its barest features or creating a decadent version made of gold, these makers explore what happens when you re-design the chair.
Making a chair may not seem like a particularly creative task. Most designers use the basic, centuries-old model: a structure with a seat, some sort of back support, and legs. But some designers are pushing the envelope so far that it’s hard to tell if their creations even fall under the definition of the word “chair." Does an object need to be functional to count as a chair? Does it need to be easily recognizable as a piece of furniture? Meet the chairs of the future—they may not become part of your parents’ next living room set, but they’re breaking new ground in the world of design.
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The Gold Skull Armchair
Image courtesy of HAROW
Imagine sinking into this 24-carat gold armchair. Hand-made in France with luxury black velvet by HAROW, each chair takes about three months to construct. “I think it is very important to understand that when we create furniture it is first of all made as a piece of art and not as an object,” HAROW (also known as Harold Sangouard) tells The Creators Project. Each piece is then altered to “become functional or comfortable,” writes the artist. The design explores the “perverse effect of capitalism” in which lower classes create luxurious objects for the wealthy. HAROW recently created one of these skull armchairs for Zoolander 2.
The Cabbage Chair
The Cabbage Chair takes its design from a very specific process: the peeling away of layers of pleated paper coated with resin. As the outer layers are peeled away, the structure of the chair reveals itself. This material creates an “elasticity and a springy resilience,” as nendo’s website explains. When painted with multiple shades and colors, the material also creates eye-catching patterns.
The Gentle Hint Chair
Image courtesy of Nissa Kinzhalina
With the Gentle Hint Chair, designer Nissa Kinzhalina stripped the chair down to its very basics. Seen from the side, the chairs look like the outline of a furniture piece—almost as if they were hand drawn. But a front view reveals a space for users to sit. The piece inspires contemplation of the real nature of a chair, and what it might look like without any bells and whistles.
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The French Touch Chair
Image courtesy of Joogii
Made of dichroic film and CNC-cut acrylic, the French Touch Chair takes inspiration from ‘90s French house music. It even has an accompanying mixtape, making the piece an entire experience. Juliette Mutzke-Felippelli, co-founder and designer at Joogii, and her husband, co-founder Diogo Felippelli, both have experience producing music and DJing. “The design of the chair is a visual expression of how tracks of 90's French House were produced,” Mutzke-Felippelli tells The Creators Project. “We wanted to challenge "function" by adding a new dimension into design.”
The Bamboo Bow Tie Chair
Image courtesy of Gridesign studio
Made of laminated bamboo, Gridesign Studio’s Bow Tie Chair uses a simplistic design to create a minimalist piece that still offers full functionality. The curves of the chair create not only a space for sitting but nooks for storing books or magazines. Its design also allows for ventilation, perfect for hot days.
The Halo Chair
Image courtesy of PATTERRN
Michael Sodeau created the Halo chair with Hypetex, described as “the world’s first coloured carbon fibre brand.” The minimal approach uses a thin structure to create a sense of weightlessness even while communicating a stately, almost majestic design. The Halo chair is a limited edition design, with only 35 pieces currently available.
The CurVoxels Project
Photo credit: Team CurVoxels, Sin Bozkurt
A project undertaken by Research Cluster 4 of the The Bartlett School of Architecture, Spatial Curves explores the potential of 3D printing to produce complex, curvilinear pieces. Team CurVoxels, made up of Hyunchul Kwon, Amreen Kaleel and Xiaolin Li and and tutors Manuel Jiménez García, Gilles Retsin and Vicente Soler Senent, experimented with applying 3D printing technology to the form of the cantilever chair. The team decided to voxelise—a process explained as “dividing an object into 3-dimensional pixels"—a standard Panton chair to create a printable spatial curve. This was used to create different densities and stunning final products.
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