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Milan 2014: American furniture company Emeco has revealed a collection of stools and tables made from recycled and reclaimed materials in collaboration with Nendo (+ slideshow).

Called SU, which means simple and plain in Japanese, the collection is being shown at the Salone Internazionale del Mobile in Milan this week.

The tabletop is made from high-pressure laminate (HPL). The stool seats come in three materials – reclaimed oak, eco-concrete and recycled polyethylene. The legs to the table and stools are made of reclaimed oak or recycled aluminium in natural or with a black anodized finish.

Oki Sato from Nendo said he was inspired by the American company’s Navy Chair design in making the collection. “The Emeco Navy Chair is “the chair”, and has always been inspiring many architects and designers around the world,” said Sato.

“After roughly two years, we are proud to present a stool, which is strongly linked with the Navy Chair. It is for us, definitely “the stool”.”

The reclaimed oak seat has been sourced from old buildings in the US and carved by Amish craftsmen in Pennsylvania. Magnus Breitling, Vice president of product at Emeco said the wormholes in the oak give the seat “character and uniqueness”.

“We keep the oak seat untreated to allow the colour to change depending on its exposure to the sun, humidity and above all – usage, thus creating its own history,” said Breitling.

The eco or ‘green concrete’ is made from 50 per cent recycled glass bottles and CSA (calcium sulfoaluminate cement), which requires less energy to make.

The recycled polyethylene seats are shaped into the SU seat through rotation moulding and come in red, flint grey and dark charcoal grey.

The stools and tables will be on show until 13 April at the Emeco stand, Hall 20, E09 in Salone Internazionale del Mobile in Milan.

Here’s some more information from Emeco:

Emeco Announces the SU Collection – Stools and Tables Designed in Collaboration With Nendo

SU Collection features the famous Emeco characteristics of design, engineering and strength, built with recycled and reclaimed materials.

HANOVER, PA – April 8, 2014 – Emeco today announced that they will launch The SU Collection of stools and tables designed in collaboration with Nendo, at the Salone Internazionale del Mobile in Milan, Italy, April 8 – 13, at Emeco’s Stand Hall 20, E09. The Japanese concept of ‘su’ comes from traditional Japanese culture, and means simple, plain, minimal. Nendo brought the design aesthetic of ‘SU’ to the collaboration with Emeco, along with the name, for the Emeco SU Collection.

The SU Collection features precise engineering and the use of new, surprising eco-conscious materials. SU has “Emeco bones” the iconic seat of Emeco chairs made since 1944, and is made of reclaimed and recycled materials discovered through ongoing exploration of eco-conscious resources. SU seats come in three new material choices, all of which demonstrate a more environmentally conscious way of doing things, using responsibly selected alternatives of some traditional materials.

Solid reclaimed oak seats have been sourced from old architecture in the U.S.A., and carved into the Emeco seat by Amish craftsmen in Pennsylvania. Every piece is unique with signs of its past life. Eco- Concrete seats are made of Green-Concrete, a revolutionary concept that can replace the energy-consuming traditional concrete used in architecture. Emeco’s eco-concrete SU seat consists of 50% recycled glass bottles and CSA (calcium sulfoaluminate cement) that takes much less energy to make.

Recycled Polyethylene seats, made of 75% postindustrial and 25% post consumer content, and shaped into the SU seat through rotation molding, come in three timeless colour options – red, flint grey and dark charcoal grey. Emeco’s traditional material, recycled aluminium is used to make SU legs with either natural or black anodized finish. Reclaimed oak, as used in the seat, is another choice for the legs.

The post Nendo reimagines the Navy Chair
to create new stool for Emeco appeared first on Dezeen.

News: online home rental brand Airbnb is to replace a set of aluminium chairs at its new San Francisco headquarters after Emeco, the company that makes the original Navy Chair, pointed out that they were fakes.

Airbnb announced today that it will replace eight chairs after Emeco contacted Dezeen to point out that the chairs were imitations of its patented design.

“With our new office, we have worked hard to create a home for our employees that reflects our company’s culture, values, and brand – including design,” said Airbnb in a statement to Dezeen. “Now that it has been brought to our attention, in this instance we will replace the eight chairs with originals.”

Emeco director of communications Martin Olsson-Prescott emailed Dezeen last week to complain about the fake chairs following our publication of the Airbnb offices, which were designed in-house by the company in homage to rental properties around the world.

“Unfortunately, we are obliged to make you aware of a knockoff product featured in that piece,” Olsson-Prescott. “Seeing a knockoff chair in a Dezeen featured cool space like the Airbnb office would help validate the false form of a knock-off. And the few people who notice might question both Airbnb’s designer and Dezeen’s selectivity.”

The Navy Chair, originally designed in 1944 for use on US Navy submarines, is one of the most widely copied designs of the last century and Emeco has been active in the courts to protect its intellectual property. Last year Emeco settled a lawsuit against American company Restoration Hardware, which was producing £50 copies of the £300 chair.

“We put a lot of efforts and investment into fighting knock-offs,” said Olsson-Prescott, who told Dezeen readers what to look out for when searching for an original Navy Chair.

“There are many small details that distinguish a genuine Emeco Navy chair from a knockoff,” he said. “In this case the biggest giveaway is the shape of the back, which is very rounded. And the spacing between the three bars in the back.”

Emeco’s Navy Chairs are created from recycled aluminium using a 77-step process and are guaranteed for 150 years.

In a video interview with Dezeen last year, Emeco CEO Gregg Buchbinder said his company was working with leading designers to create ever-more sophisticated products in order to deter copying. “The more difficult it is, the more difficult it is for people to knock it off,” Buchbinder said.

The post Airbnb removes “knockoff” Navy Chairs
from new headquarters appeared first on Dezeen.

Movie: Designer Konstantin Grcic tells Dezeen that American furniture company Emeco had to industrialise its production methods to produce his new Parrish chair in this video interview filmed in Milan. 

Grcic originally designed the Parrish chair as part of a range of furniture for Herzog & de Meuron’s barn-like Parrish Art Museum on Long Island, completed in 2012.

The chair was launched by American furniture company Emeco as a commercial product at Milan earlier this year.

In the movie, Grcic explains that he approached Emeco to produce the chair because of its experience of working in aluminium, most famously with the iconic Navy Chair, which Emeco has produced since 1944.

“I felt we needed a company to support the development of the project,” says Grcic.

“Emeco stands for chairs in aluminium and aluminium was the perfect material for the chair that we had in mind because the [Parrish Art Museum] is very open [to the elements].”

Unlike the Navy Chair, in which each piece is welded together by hand, the legs, armrests and backrest of the Parrish chair are all locked together by a single joint under the seat.

“Everything is mechanically joined to a central core, a piece of die-cast aluminium, which is really the heart of the chair,” Grcic explains.

“So we have one moulded piece that solves all of the structure of the chair and the seat is exchangeable. You can have an upholstered seat, a plastic seat or a wooden seat.”

Grcic says that he deliberately wanted to move Emeco away from the time-intensive production methods involved in producing the Navy Chair.

“I felt we should actually change the way [Emeco] makes chairs,” he says. “Industrialise it, simplify it, eliminate all the dirty work, all the hand labour. That’s what really informed the concept of the chair.”

He concludes: “Emeco will always produce the Navy Chair in the way they produce it, but I think now we’ve established another form of production inside their company.”

See all our stories about Konstantin Grcic »
See all our stories about Emeco »

See all our Milan 2013 coverage »
Watch our Dezeen and MINI World Tour video reports from Milan »

The post “I felt we should change the way Emeco
makes chairs” – Konstantin Grcic appeared first on Dezeen.

Milan 2013: a collection of furniture designed by Konstantin Grcic for Herzog & de Meuron’s Parrish Art Museum in Long Island has gone into production with American brand Emeco.

Presented at Salone Internazionale del Mobile, the Parrish collection of chairs and tables by Konstantin Grcic for Emeco was originally created for Herzog & de Meuron’s barn-like Parrish Art Museum, completed last autumn.

The pieces are made from tubular recycled aluminium, held in place under the tractor-inspired seat by a component with six connecting points referred to as “the heart”.

The range now includes a lounge chair and side chair plus tables in two heights, made of sandblasted aluminium with clear, red or black finishes.

Chair seats come in wood harvested close to the Emeco factory in Pennsylvania, upholstery in leather or fabric, or reclaimed polypropylene like that used in Philippe Starck’s Broom chair shown last year.

Emeco is famous for aluminium furniture, having created the much-copied classic Navy Chair for the American armed forces in 1944. In recent years they’ve produced chairs with top international designers including Jean Nouvel, Philippe Starck and Michael Young. See all our stories about chairs by Emeco.

Other products by Grcic in Milan included a remake of Achille Castiglioni’s iconic Parentesi lamp for Flos, and angular wooden stools and tables for Italian brand Mattiazzi. See all our stories about design by Konstantin Grcic.

See all our stories about design at Milan 2013 »

Here’s some more information from Emeco:

Detailed to perfection with a classic appearance, the Parrish Collection by Emeco and German designer Konstantin Grcic was first made for the Parrish Art Museum in Water Mill, New York.

The externally modest building of the Parrish Art Museum holds an internal complexity, just like the Parrish Collection – a set of chairs and tables with a subtle design and a heartfelt technical core. “Developing the mobile interiors for the Parrish Art Museum brings us to the peculiar psychology around chairs used in public spaces – exploring the idea of comfort using very little material.

Considering the public self-awareness in a museum seat, the Parrish chair was given a generous seat and a round tube, forming a belt that defines the space around you – a space where you can feel protected,” says Konstantin Grcic.

The Parrish lounge and side chairs are part of a modular collection, featuring three frames with four optional seats. The recycled aluminum sandblasted frames are available in clear anodized, red or black powder coated finishes.

The frames can be combined with different seat types; reclaimed polypropylene, locally sourced wood from Lancaster, PA, Danish fabric from Kvadrat or three luxurious leathers from Spinneybeck. These choices enable different combinations, creating a versatile family. All chairs with reclaimed polypropylene seats are suitable for outdoor use. The table bases are available in two recycled aluminum sandblasted finishes, the clear anodized aluminum finish or the black powder coated finish, in two different heights as café and side tables, which can be combined with two alternative Trespa table tops in pastel grey or black.

“The collaboration with Emeco was always an important part of the project, something I had in mind as an obvious choice for the kind of furniture we needed. It is simply the only company I could think of who could bring a nice mix for this interior concept, specialists in aluminum, delivering another kind of material appearance, environmentally sound, perfect for the both indoor and outdoor and being such a truly American company – it was a perfect match,“ says Grcic.

“When Konstantin asked me if Emeco would be interested in collaborating with him on the Parrish Art Museum I was thrilled. Konstantin is one of the most innovative and original industrial designers of today,” says Emeco’s CEO Gregg Buchbinder. “Konstantin’s degree of perfection combined with his analytical rigor made the product development process deliberate and thoughtful. He managed to leverage our heritage and at the same time push Emeco into the future. The Parrish Chair reminds me of something Le Corbusier might have designed in the 1920’s; yet at the same time, it looks fresh, modern, and original – it’s a real artifact of our current culture, a future classic,” Buchbinder continues.

“I have always had a fascination and admiration of the hard physical labor of the production of the iconic Emeco Navy chair. My ambition for the collaboration was, therefore, to do something that uses the same aluminum work but makes the process more effective, less physically challenging. I think the design of the Parrish chair comes from a close understanding of what Emeco can really do,” says Konstantin.

The post Parrish by Konstantin Grcic
for Emeco appeared first on Dezeen.

Industrial designer Konstantin Grcic worked with furniture brand Emeco to create the chairs and tables that furnish the new Parrish Art Museum on Long Island, recently completed by Swiss architects Herzog & de Meuron.

The Parrish Art Museum recently moved to a new building by Herzog & de Meuron, a single-storey structure near the town of Southampton that resembles two long, narrow barns placed side by side.

Konstantin Grcic and Emeco’s Parrish collection includes a table, chair and lounge chair, all with curving legs made from recycled aluminium and seats made of reclaimed pine.

“The Parrish chair was given a round tube, forming a belt that defines the space around you – a space where you can feel protected,” said Grcic, adding that the chair manages to feel spacious while using very little material.

“The pine on the aluminium chair looks almost like tractor seat,” he added, “which has something old fashioned and genuine about it.”

Above: photograph by Konstantin Grcic

The collection will be launched in Milan next April, with tabletops made of high-pressure laminate rather than pine.

Grcic recently designed a mirror for a poodle as part of the Architecture for Dogs project and also contributed a bench covered in a glass mosaic to an exhibition at the V&A during the London Design Festival.

Above: photograph by Richard Lewin

Famous for its aluminium chairs, the American brand Emeco was founded in 1944 with a commission from the US government to produce the now classic Navy chair, also known as the 1006. Earlier this year we reported on a collection of aluminium chairs designed by French architect Jean Nouvel for Emeco.

See all our stories about chairs »
See all our stories about Konstantin Grcic »
See all our stories about Emeco »

Above: photograph by Richard Lewin

Photographs are by Clo’e Floirat except where stated.

Here’s some more information from the museum:

Parrish Art Museum
Mobile interiors by Emeco + Konstantin Grcic
Museum opening Nov. 10, 2012 in Water Mill, NYC, USA

Emeco and Konstantin Grcic collaborate on interior installation at the New Parrish Art Museum in South Hampton, NYC.

“The location on Long Island brings a feeling of countryside and the design process was always defined by finding the most straightforward solution fitting the surrounding – the specific needs for this specific museum in this specific region,” Konstantin Grcic reflects.

Based on local materials from local manufacturers, Konstantin Grcic matches recycled aluminium and retrieved timber with the bare building, both as fixed and mobile furniture for the Parrish Art Museum. The interior installation includes tables and chairs created in collaboration with American manufacturer Emeco.

“The collaboration with Emeco was always an important part of the project, something I had in mind as an obvious choice for the kind of furniture we needed. It is simply the only company I could think of who could bring a nice mix for this interior concept, specialists in aluminium, delivering another kind of material appearance, environmentally sound, perfect for the both indoor and outdoor and being such a truly American company – it was a perfect match,” Grcic continues.

“When Konstantin asked me if Emeco would be interested in collaborating with him on the Parrish Art Museum I was thrilled. Konstantin is one of the most innovative and original industrial designers of today,” says Emeco’s CEO Gregg Buchbinder. “Konstantin’s degree of perfection combined with his analytical rigour made the product development process deliberate and thoughtful. He managed to leverage our heritage and at the same time push Emeco into the future. The Parrish Chair reminds me of something Le Corbusier might have designed in the 1920s, yet at the same time, it looks fresh, modern, and original – it’s a real artifact of our current culture, a future classic,” Buchbinder continues.

“I have always had a fascination and admiration of the hard physical labour of the production of the Emeco’s iconic Navy chair. My ambition for the collaboration was, therefore, to do something that uses the same aluminium work but make the process more effective, less physically challenging. I think the design of the Parrish chair comes from a close understanding of what Emeco really can do,” says Konstantin.

“Developing the mobile interiors for the Parrish museum brings us to the peculiar psychology around chairs used in public spaces – exploring the idea of comfort and non-comfort. The best you can give someone in a public space is a chair that really feels like a chair. Considering the public self-awareness in a museum seat, the Parrish chair was given a round tube, forming a belt that defines the space around you – a space where you can feel protected. The chair is also spacious, achieved using very little material. Put together the pine on the aluminum chair looks almost like tractor seat, which has something old fashioned and genuine about it. At the final installation the Parrish chairs are strong individuals, yet the collection, I must say, looks even greater in multiplication. A density of tube forms composed in a very nice subtle way, an astonishing view in numbers,” Konstantin concludes.

The post Parrish by Konstantin Grcic and Emeco
for the Parrish Art Museum appeared first on Dezeen.