Hasta La Ideas

Product news: the seat of this chair by Venetian designer Luca Nichetto is made of folded felt.

Called Motek, the design by Stockholm-based Luca Nichetto for Italian brand Cassina is pressure-moulded to make it rigid enough to support a person’s weight without losing the lightweight qualities of the fabric.

Origami-inspired folds give extra support to the structure.

The design comes with wooden or steel legs and there’s also a version upholstered in leather.

Nichetto presented the chair at the Salone Internazionale del Mobile in Milan last month, where he also showed cabinets carved with geometric patterns for Casamania and a TV-like lamp for Foscarini – see all design by Luca Nichetto.

Read our interview with the new Salone del Mobile president on how he plans to tackle issues that “damage Milan” and see all our stories about Milan 2013.

Other felt products we’ve featured recently include a chair with a pressure-moulded seat by Patricia Urquiola for Moroso and a seed-shaped pod for working or napping in peace – see more stories about designs in felt.

Here’s some more information from Luca Nichetto:

The inspiration behind Motek chair is a sheet of paper, which is flexible and lightweight by its very nature. Originally, a sheet of paper cannot bear weights, but the Japanese art of origami – which, with a series of folds, creates forms and structures that can support weights – the same sheet takes on a new lease of life.

Thanks to a new technology for Cassina, such as pressure molding, a sheet of felt is folded, which will bring the necessary rigidity to the body of the chair for it to support weights without losing the lightness of the original material.

In this project, the search for details and the experimentation with materials typical of the collaboration between Nichetto and Cassina led to a felt version of the chair, which comes in three different shades, as well as to a leather version, where the seams highlight the folds characterizing the aesthetics of the seat.

The adaptability to the different consumers’ tastes is yet another feature sought by Nichetto for Motek, which was obtained through a series of combinations of structure, legs and body.

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for Cassina appeared first on Dezeen.

Clerkenwell Design Week 2013: British designer Freyja Sewell’s felt cocoons have gone into production and were on show in a Victorian former prison in London this week (+ movie).

Hush by Freyja Sewell is a felt pod constructed entirely from biodegradable materials, which users can crawl into to work or rest in private.

“By creating an enclosed space, Hush provides a personal retreat, a luxurious escape into a dark, hushed, natural space in the midst of a busy hotel, airport, office or library,” explains Sewell.

The outer shell of the pod is made from a single piece of industrial wool felt, while the internal padding is made from recycled wool fibres discarded by carpet manufacturers.

Hush is manufactured by Ness Furniture in Durham and was presented by Sewell at the House of Detention as part of Clerkenwell Design Week.

Also on show at Clerkenwell design week was a pendant lamp made from twenty-six cable ties and shelving by Michael Marriott.

Another pod-like chair we’ve recently featured is the Kenny chair by Raw Edges, which is made from a single loop of material. 

See all our stories about chair design »
See all our stories about felt »
See all our stories about Clerkenwell Design Week »

Here’s a bit more information about Hush:

Freyja Sewell set out to create a private space within a publicworld, constructed from natural, biodegradable materials. Three years in the making, HUSH is now available for purchase.

Open plan offices and public buildings, CCTV, online profile sharing, cameras built into our laptops; never has it been easier for humans to connect, but what about when we want to withdraw? There are now 21 cities with populations larger than ten million, and it is predicted that there will be many more in the future. It is essential to continue to develop new ways of allowing people to comfortably co-exist in these increasingly densely populated environments.

By creating an enclosed space HUSH provides a personal retreat, a luxurious escape into a dark, hushed, natural space in the midst of a busy hotel, airport, office or library. HUSH provided a quiet space in an age of exponential population growth, where privacy and peaceful respite is an increasingly precious commodity.

The main body of HUSH is cut from a single piece of 10mm industrial wool felt. Wool is naturally flame retardant, breathable, durable and elastic; it is also multi-climatic, meaning it is warm when the environment is cold and cool when it’s warm. It is of course biodegradable and so won’t clog up landfill after disposal. It is produced sustainably from animals out in the open, with each sheep producing a new fleece each year. The internal padding of HUSH is made from recycled wool fibers, produced as a by-product of the British carpet industry.

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Freyja Sewell appeared first on Dezeen.

Japanese designer Kei Harada has created two chairs made completely out of rubber.

Harada based the project on a Surrealist image by American portrait photographer Philippe Halsman called Dali Atomicus, which illustrates a silhouetted chair crashing towards a chaotic scene that includes flying cats, a bucket of water and the artist Salvador Dali suspended in mid-air.

The designer told Dezeen, “If I could change one thing about the photograph, I would transform the chair into a rubber one; by doing so, I could add a little ease to the photograph because a rubber chair would inflict less damage to the floor, walls, and the chair itself.”

The elastic material provides a more malleable chair, so the back and legs bend in response to the sitter’s posture.

There are two seats in the Chair for Dali series: one chair has a square back rest and is made of rubber with 70% hardness whilst the other has a rounded back and is made of rubber with 90% hardness, making the leg bracing unnecessary.

Above: Dali Atomicus by Philippe Halsman

Other rubber furniture we’ve featured include Thomas Schnur’s table with plungers for feet and a stool made from recycled rubber.

Chair photographs are by Kazutaka Fujimoto.

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Kei Harada appeared first on Dezeen.

London designer Benjamin Hubert has created a chair that looks like it’s wrapped up in a cloak for Italian brand Moroso.

Named Talma after a type of cloak, this chair by Benjamin Hubert for Moroso, has a fabric cover wrapped snuggly around its frame.

The chair is composed of a softly padded textile folded around a lightweight CNC-shaped steel frame with integrated support straps.

The stretchy fabric is custom made by Innofa and is secured in place with a series of zips and two fastenings at the front.

Talma was presented by Moroso at the Salone Internazionale Mobile in Milan last month, where the brand also launched a family of chairs influenced by the shape of a hood. 

Other chairs we’ve recently featured by Moroso include a chair with a backrest wrapped in rush and a chair made from a single loop of material.

Benjamin Hubert also unveiled an armchair that weighs just three kilograms in Milan.

We interviewed the designer at our Dezeen Live event during 100% Design at the end of last year, where he talked about the importance of branding for designers.Watch the interview »

See all design for Moroso »
See all design by Benjamin Hubert »

See all our stories about chair design »
See all our coverage of Milan 2013 »

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for Moroso appeared first on Dezeen.

Product news: the seat of this chair by London design duo Raw Edges for Italian brand Moroso is made from a single loop of material.

The Kenny chair by Raw Edges for Moroso has a pocket-shaped seat fixed to a four-legged oak frame.

The seat is made from from a loop of metal mesh, a thin piece of upholstery foam and a “warp and weft” fabric from Danish textile manufacturer Kvadrat, which has two colours of yarn woven in different directions.

The designers pulled out individual threads to reveal more of the weft, creating a striped pattern across the fabric.

“Turning flat material into three-dimensional volumetric shapes can be done in many ways, from pattern-making in fashion to complex origami folding,” explained designers Yael Mer and Shay Alkalay. “This project is all about the effortlessness of its geometry.”

Raw Edges recently created a bookcase shaped like a loom to display novels by young British writers and a display of hundreds of fabric ribbons for Kvadrat – see all design by Raw Edges.

We’ve published several Moroso products lately, including Patricia Urquiola’s chairs that wrap around the sitter like a hood and Nendo’s chair inspired by stiletto heels – see all furniture by Moroso.

Other chairs we’ve featured recently include a reissue of a classic design by Dieter Rams and a curved wooden chair with a cut-out backs – see all chairs.

Photographs are by Alessandro Paderni.

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for Moroso appeared first on Dezeen.