Hasta La Ideas

For their new 2012 collection, O2ASIS, Swedish furniture company OFFECCT asked designers to create products that encourage people to keep plants inside their homes. They have a nice, if typical, assortment of indoor planters and tables with inset areas to grow flowers, but Ineke Hans responded to the design challenge in a completely different way with Smallroom, a rearrangeable sofa with an armrest that houses space for plants. Of course, this space could just as easily hold books or remote controls, making it a sort of arbitrary fit for O2ASIS’ criteria, but its other features are so compelling I forgive its plant-less capacity.

Smallroom can be configured in three different ways. Depending on what sections you add on or use elsewhere, the sofa can be 1, 1.5 or 2 meters long. Each section includes a high-backed seating element that lends the sitter some privacy, acting almost like—yes, you guessed it—a small room. You can face the sections for a little tête-à-tête, position them back to back to add more privacy, or slide them one up against the other for an extra long couch. Hans envisioned the armrest as an ideal writing surface or for laptops, with the undercarriage used to store cables, but she admits a little plant works equally well.

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