Making Flippy-Floppy

Hey, remember these guys?

Fashion and brilliance, what’s not to love?

The Talking Heads are one of the seminal bands of the 70s/80s, and David Byrne  was the mastermind behind their groundbreaking music.

Did you know he’s also designed chairs?

The Mohawk Chair

 

When asked simply, “Why chairs?”, this is what Mr. Byrne had to say:

Well, they have arms and legs and vaguely human scale — and shape. They’re people — they hold you, support you, elevate you or humble you. They’re funny or elegant, funky or gorgeous, social or aloof. They’re characters with lives and histories…aren’t they?

Pretty much every architect or artist working in a sculptural medium is confronted with the chair design question at some point in their lives.  It’s nice to see that Mr. Big Suit can join the party!

Stackability

Dornob‘s done it again, this time with a unique take on economic, stackable chairs.

Design? Meet function!

The Triplette Chair by French designer Paul Menand is a sight for sore eyes for yours truly.  I used to work in a liquor store with a tasting room, and for every event we had to set up tables and chairs for our customers.

Cue entry into the cobwebbed storeroom, filled with stacks of bent old nested chairs.  They were a nightmare to separate and even worse to stack again.  Even though they were upholstered, they weren’t very comfortable, and at 5’4″ I can tell you that lifting one of the metal monsters above your head to try and stack it so that it won’t fall on you while you’re negotiating the stack back into the closet isn’t fun.

Menand solved my problem and thousands others like it, not to mention the woes of entertaining in small loft spaces, with his Triplette.  Who doesn’t want three chairs in one?  The best part of this design is that the “storage container” can be used as a single chair when you’re not in need of extra seating.

More for your money

I’m going to have to put you on the grid, Kevin.

The folks over at Dornob never disappoint.  This time it’s with armchairs inspired by TRON: Legacy, designed by Dror Benshetrit.

I fight for the users!

Made from recyclable material, these chairs are certainly eye-catching, if not totally comfortable.  Each piece is designed with colors, angles and materials that call to mind the decades-old question: Are you a program, or are you a user?

Frameless, fabulous?

Core77′s design awards showcase a unique line of products designed with function and comfort in mind.  One of the big beauties this time around is the Herman Miller SAYL chair.  Its laid-back design delivers total support for the active office worker without sacrificing style. The SAYL offers injection-molded mesh that conforms to your body without bulky lumbar pillows.

But best of all, it’s unpretentious.  It’s aesthetically pleasing without too many frills and is one of the best examples of functional design I’ve seen in awhile.

From the onset, we understood that designing a chair (and no less fro Herman Miller) was an amazing design challenge. There is no place to hide in a chair; every part serves a structural or tactile purpose, while providing comfort, ergonomic support and beauty. We approved this challenge with the overall goal of attainability.

It’s also designed to be affordable for a wide market, which is a huge plus.  This isn’t your grandfather’s executive chair!

Excuse me, sir, but is that a bomb you’re sitting on?

The folks over at Dornob.com came up with a gem today:  Blast Stools!

No, really.  Blast Stools.  The stool starts as a metal cylinder or box carefully shaped and welded together by Guy Mishaly and his cohorts.  They place charges at strategic points around the cylinder and literally BLOW IT UP, causing the leg sections to curl in.  Then they polish, grind and voila!  Your very own blow’d up chair.

Check out the link, because they’ve thoughtfully provided a video of one of these babies from inception to explosion.

I want one.  Heck, I want to make one!

We interrupt your regularly scheduled blogger…

Hi there. I’m Christa, SeatingZone’s new blogger, and I’m sitting on this:

I can’t imagine this is comfortable, but it sure is unique.

Okay, not really, but I’d like to be.  Big, bold chunks of color with the added nostalgia factor  for my days of rash Lego innovation?  I couldn’t resist.

Homeqn.com, an awesome home decor site focusing on eye-catching, innovative furniture and accessories for your home, offered me this beauty, and I had to share.  I just have one question:

How high can I build them?

Stay tuned for a more substantial update centered around chairs, upholstery, pneumatics and things of that nature.

meta-chair

Hey y’all — had a little break from blogging, but I’m back now. Here’s a chair I came across thanks to the fine folks at Dornob, what they like to refer to as a “literalist” chair. I like to think of it as a “meta” chair myself:

Designer Eric Ku created this flat-pack design, which assembles into a fairly nice-looking finished piece in the end, one you can actually sit in:

…although one could say, perhaps, that it resembles a high chair. Just a little bit. What do you think, chair enthusiasts?

my favorite jimmie martin creations

ChairBlog‘s found another good one — the impossibly stylish chairs of Jimmie Martin. Like Julia at ChairBlog, I’ve gone through every single one of their jaw-droppingly awesome seating options until I had to hammer my mouth back together. But here are two of my favorite ones, which I’ve chosen because they’re so different from one another.

First, we have KABOOM:

So dynamic! This one blows me away, and I think it’s because of that matching ottoman. It really is like a comic panel come to life!

Then there’s the Edgar Allen Poe side of things:

This was a collaboration piece with jewelry designer/taxidermist Hannah Martin. Quoth the Raven, “Good likeness.”

mr. chair

Oh my! I had to repost this tantalizing bit of design from ChairBlog – the very masculine Mr. Chair, designed by Soojin Hyun for the Milan 2011 furniture fair. The chair seems to lend itself to innumerable goofy poses and would certainly be a conversation piece in an actual room. Can you imagine this as your office chair? I can!

risd students@international contemporary furniture fair

The ICFF is happening right now, and our local furniture designing-darlings from RISD will be making their mark there as well! A dozen graduate and undergraduate Furniture Design majors are showcasing their works there as we speak. Among them is MFA 2011 candidate Alexandra Snook, who created the Saddle Stool pictured above. In her own words:

Twintex® is a thread of sorts, so I initially examined the ways in which we use conventional threads and yarn – sewing, crocheting and knitting.

When I was six years old, my grandmother taught me to knit; I went to her house after school and we would knit together on an old grey wool couch. Knitting was always kept separate from my work as a designer, but working with Twintex® excited me to finally incorporate it into my furniture.  Since Twintex® has the unique feature of hardening through baking, I was able to use knitting in a more structural way than would otherwise be possible in creating Saddle Stool.

Learn more about the Furniture Design students at ICFF and see more examples of their work here.