Chair Chick

 

What's Up, Buttercup?

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Just when you think you have Kenneth Cobonpue figured out, he goes and does something completely different. The designer's Bloom Collection includes this lounge chair, which is made of microfibre stretched over resin on a steel base. The flower-like profile is "sculpted" by hundreds of running stitches radiating from the center of the seat. The line also includes a club chair. Both the club and lounge chairs are available in Moss Green, Light Green, Yellow (shown) and Red. See the club chair on DesignCommotion.

Filed under  //   Bloom Lounge Chair   Design Commotion   Kenneth Cobonpue  
Posted January 5, 2010
 

Fasten Your Seat Belt

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I first saw the Seat Belt line by Philips Collection last year at the HD Boutique show. I was immediately smitten with the strappy chairs and ottomans that are veritable sculptures. Mark and Julie Philips, along with their son Jason, are always on the lookout for unique home furnishings and Chair Chick salutes them for their fearless style. I posted a link to a recent article in The New York Times on my Fanpage on Facebook and wasn't surprised that one of our fans, Aisling Burrowes, felt the reporter was being overly harsh in a Q&A that had Jason speaking about one of the company's newest products, the Yenn LED Cube. I'd like to know what you think. Here's the link. If you're not a fan, we'd love to see you join us on our Design Commotion fanpage as well. Sound-off everyone!

Back to the Seat Belt: Thai designer Nuttapong Charoenkitivarakorn designed it as a part of a larger collection of work entitled "The Sculpture." The work was designed in 2005 and is hand-made in Thailand. Nuttapong works with influences important to modern Thai culture. In this instance, the Seatbelt Chair is made using scrap material from a local manufacturer by people in a local Thai village. By combining the two worlds of modern manufacturing and Thai craftsmanship Nuttapong references historical Thai culture while at the same time using material from a manufacturer integral to Thailand's modern economy.

The inspiration for using cotton straps came about after Charaoenkitivarakorn saw them being used for seat belts and bag straps. He set out to create a functional piece that added an exotic and modern flair to a basic design. The steel and wood frame are then wrapped in the cotton “seat belt” in a criss-cross pattern- one Nuttapong found more fresh than the basic checkerboard design. Even the backside of the chair is worth noting. Braided all the way to the base, it gives the illusion on a fishtail. The straps have one color on either side of the fabric, which is responsible for the striking contrast of color as the material twists.

Filed under  //   Design Commotion   Phillips Collection   Seat Belt Chair   Yenn LED Cube  
Posted October 12, 2009
 

One-off Wonder

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B&B Italia and Wallpaper* have joined forces to create a one-off collection of Naoto Fukasawa's AGNRde Papilio chair, which was designed by Viktor & Rolf, Elmgreen & Dragset and Baron & Baron, and debuted during the 2009 London Design Festival that is winding down this weekend. The exhibition, titled B&B&3, the 3 representing the dynamic duos who were given free reign to reimagine the chair, will remain on view through October 18. The chairs will then be donated to the Terrence Higgins Trust, which will auction them off later in the year. For those who've been tromping around London to see the many venues, a reservation at the Dorchester Spa might be just the thing for your aching feet and backs. See a post on the Design Commotion blog about the dreamy redesigned spaces by Fox Linton Associates.

Filed under  //   BB Italia   DesignCommotion   London Design Festival   The Dorchester Spa   Wallpaper Magazine  
Posted September 26, 2009
 

Throne of Invention

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According to Fredrik Olsson and Sam Sihvonen, the Slacker Throne is a nod to the days when the 80's and 90's Nintendo generation had the freedom to hang and play. Not anymore say the designers of the chair, who note that the stress of living busy lives has robbed the former slackers of their laggardly ways. "Game over!" they declare. The pair designed the low-rider while attending the masters program at HDK, the School of Design and Crafts at Gothenburg at the University of Sweden. The limited edition thrones, made of birch and upholstery, cost $3,200 and have a lead time of 5 months. Visit Olsson's web site to see more of the wunderkind's wares. My posting theme for the day is gypsies, kings and deities. This is the kings post in my triumvirate. See my gypsies post on my Examiner page and deities on the Design Commotion blog.

Filed under  //   Design Commotion   Fredrik Olsson   Slacker Throne  
Posted September 23, 2009
 

Ghost of a Chance

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Nine lucky designers/artists are getting the opportunity to play around with Philippe Starck's Louis Ghost Chair in the London design shop Lifestyle Bazaar in celebration of the London Design Festival, which kicks off tomorrow. The participants range from street artists, tattoo artists, taxidermists, sculptors, furniture designers, product designers and interior designers. There's even a person who deals in conceptual salvage taking a crack at the ubiquitously invisible chair. Once designed, the chairs will be auctioned off to benefit the Children With Aids Charity. Though the full roster of designs have not been released, we have heard that one chair will be covered with desserts. It will be photographed by Rosie Day and then visitors will have a chance to snack on the goodies. Now that's what Chair Chick calls an incredible edible! Other happenings around London include Patrick Blanc's vertical garden at the Athenaeum hotel (see my post on the Design Commotion blog) and a Max Lamb exhibition (see my Examiner page).

Filed under  //   Design Commotion   Lifestyle Bazaar   London Design Festival   Philippe Starck Louis Ghost chair  
Posted September 18, 2009
 

The Bold and the Beautiful

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Los Angeles-based Viesso furniture has one of the most user-friendly online order options for customizing furniture that I've seen. The manufacturer also has green leanings, offering furniture made from FSC certified woods, natural latex fillings, recycled fiber upholstery, and water-based glues and stains. Believe it or not, the company's furniture is usually ready to ship in about three weeks. Check out the Pel chair, covered in a kicky black and white fabric called Prince, with angular lines, tapering arms and a slanted back for a welcoming embrace. Equally vivacious is the Dekayess sofa, especially covered in the blast-from-the-past paisley-like fabric (with a name like Romo, it has to be bold!).
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Filed under  //   Dekayess Sofa   Design Commotion   Pel Chair   Viesso  
Posted August 24, 2009
 

One Giant Step for Chair-kind

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Dario Antonioni's newest invention will set you back an orbit or two. The Carbon22 chair, made from 100% carbon fiber, sells for $22,000 (now that's a lot of g's!). “It's not just furniture, says Antonioni, a trained aerospace engineer turned product designer. "It's art." The Carbon22 collecIon uIlizes advanced technologies to sculpt pieces that read blacker-than-black (like the stool, above, that reads a bit like a space-aged saddle). Besides the stool, there's a signature chair, a desk, an end table and a cocktail table--all in limited edition. Each piece creates a streaming, sensual flow of air in a wind tunnel, just the thing that would make an aeronautics buff beam. The founder of Orange22 deign lab's products are fancied by a long list of celebrities, including Ralph Lauren, Henri Bendel, Ian Schrager and Edward Norton. See Annotioni's Botanist Blank Canvas tables, which some of the world's biggest design stars have made their mark on, on DesignCommotion.

Filed under  //   Carbon 22   Design Commotion   Limited Edition Designs   Orange 22  
Posted August 11, 2009
 

Let Your Hair Down

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Kenneth Cobonpue wants you to tap into your inner child with the fun, funky and fresh Harry Rocking Stool. The fabric strips are stitched on interchangeable covers over a steel base. Colors include yellow, light green, moss green, brown, red and black. The stool, quite literally, rocks! Find a list of distributors on Cobonpue's web site.

Other designs sporting disheveled dignity are the Baby Hairy Bertoia, which has over 2,500 strands of closed-cell extruded sponge cord hand-knotted to a freshly powdercoated, vintage pint-sized Harry Bertoia chair. There's also Charles Kaisin's Hairy Chair, which is a bit more shaggy dog with its shredded paper finely cut to cover a repurposed chair. See a slide show of the chairs for close comparison on the Design Commotion fan page on Facebook.

Filed under  //   Charles Kaisin   Design Commotion   Harry Bertoia   Harry Rocking Stool   Kenneth Cobonpue  
Posted August 6, 2009
 

Star Power

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Konstantin Grcic's Chair_One, designed for Magis, is touted as being one of the most versatile seating systems that has ever been designed. A version with a concrete base is available as is a swivel version and variations for public seating. Chair legs are polished anodized aluminum and seats are die-cast aluminum, cataphoretically-treated and painted in red, white or anthracite polyester powder. The webbed patterning that creates the seat seems to be morphing into a starlike sculpture, though the design is indeed frozen in time. I particularly like its profile, which looks like a cupped hand awaiting a deposit of something luminous. It's available on the web here.

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Is it just me, or do there seem to be design fairs popping up in the most unsuspecting places? An installation of Chair_One was exhibited during the Sofia Design Week, the first one held in the Bulgarian city, in June. Magis' furniture is also being featured in an exhibition at the Design Museum in London, though the design-savvy inhabitants of that city would not be considered unsuspecting!

Filed under  //   Chair_One   DesignCommotion   Konstantin Grcic   Magis   Sofia Design Week  
Posted August 5, 2009
 

Playtime!

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If you were one of those kids who couldn't wait for recess, the Seesaw chair, designed by Louise Campbell, will hold a special place in your home (and heart). The dynamic chair (after all, it takes two people to balance it) is made of cold cured polyurethane foam. It can be upholstered in fabric and ordered in a variety of colors. Campbell's workshop is located in the heart of Copenhagen in an old building that the designer describes honestly: "The floor drops 28 cm from one end of the space to the other. This means that all our mess and coffee-spills end up in a pile at the far end of the space. Next to me."

Campbell bases her work on three simple rules: always start from scratch, find the core of the issue and dare to be different. I'd say Seesaw accomplishes this criteria in spades! Campbell was born in Copenhagen, the daughter of a Danish father and an English mother. Lucky girl that she is, she grew up and was educated in both countries. After graduating from the London College of Furniture in 1992, she returned to Denmark and continued her studies in industrial design at Denmarks Design School, graduating from there in 1995. She set up her own studio in 1996, from where she has worked independently since. Her focus is on furniture and lighting design, but the studio is increasingly involved in product design and interior design projects as well. Her client list is long and varied, including companies such as Louis Poulsen, Zanotta, HAY, Royal Copenhagen, Holmegaard, Stelton, Muuto, Interstop and The Danish Ministry of Culture.

Campbell's work is playful and experimental, and is increasingly gaining a reputation for gently twisting not only every day objects and situations, but also materials and manufacturing processes in new directions. See the playful Seesaw in its many incantations on Erik Jorgansen's site.

Filed under  //   DesignCommotion   Erik Jorgensen   Louise Campbell   Seesaw Chair  
Posted August 3, 2009