Hasta La Ideas

It was love at first sight for Bjoda and me. I can’t claim to know Bjoda’s feelings in the manner, it’s just a chair, after all, but from the moment I saw the knitted sofa/chair I was love struck. Bjoda is the seating equivalent of your favorite, coziest Winter sweater. Hand knit by product designer Amaya Gutierrez, Bjoda was the result of Amaya’s research into what comfort means. She discovered that beyond ergonomics, “comfort is a pleasing reaction to our senses,” she said. “The conclusion was to enhance our tactile experience through the use of materials and textures by changing the scale of the textile and the way it wraps around the body’s structure. In a way, it’s an invasion of our senses, a sort of invasive cushioning.”

Amaya Gutierrez is a product designer who works mainly in furniture and apparel, though she’s developed a few other items as well, like the iThrone, an iPhone dock and amplifier that works without any electricity. Like the iThrone, which is made out of porcelain, the materials used to make Bjoda were extremely important. After playing with a variety of textiles and making 1/4-scale miniatures to see how how the thread count, thread size, elasticity and “fluff” changed depending on the kind of weave, she finally found the right material: nautical rope, also known as plain old cotton cord.

“But all this was to a smaller scale, so I had to develop my own tools to knit the sofa chair [in] real scale. Thanks to my exploration with the mockups…I knew what I needed to use, so it was a matter of figuring out the size for the knitting ring and the hooks to complement the knitting process. I also needed something that could serve as a supportive structure and could spring a little. The wire frame is strong as well as being lightweight, because the cord could get really heavy and stiff when knitted.”

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