Being a little on the short side I often find I have a problem with conventional chairs: they are too big for me. Sitting down on a park bench or in a lounge chair I find I have to choose between dangly legs or unsupported back, neither of which are comfortable.
So I was interested to find ‘Chair 1 Colour and Line Chair’ by Tokyo-based Dutch architect Frank la Rivière at Tent London 2011, part of the London Design Festival. A minimal birch plywood chair in four interlocking pieces, it can be made to measure. The seat and the backrest slot into the armrests and are held in place with wedges. The chair can be stored and transported flat. With a choice of lacquer colours for each piece or the possibility of bonding or laminating leather, metal or another covering to it, the choices to personalise this chair seem endless.
Frank la Rivière brought just the lounge chair to Tent London at the old Truman Brewery, Brick Lane, but the range also includes a dining chair and table and he is currently working on a children’s version of the chair and a shelving system.
Another architect-designed chair which caught my eye at Tent was Eravolution’s Zpine Lounge Chair designed by Eric Tong, who until he set up Eravolution in 2010, practised as an architect, working for Zaha Hadid and Future Systems.
The Zpine Series, which also includes a dining chair, side tables and a coffee table, uses a reinforced cellular structure in recycled birch ply over a stainless steel frame. The honeycomb look created is both beautiful and surprisingly comfortable. Each piece uses less than half the material and weighs less than half of a conventional chair of similar style. And it comes apart to be shipped completely flat making it sustainable in it’s manufacture, packaging, distribution and disposal.
Eravolution is now developing a version of the chair in recycled polymer which can be used outdoors. It will be produced in a range of colours.
And an honourable mention has to be made for yet another chair made from birch ply. Anthony Hartley’s Frank Gehry-inspired chairs with beautiful curves and lines, ‘Mr and Mrs Smith’, are painted and lacquered in multiple colours, one with an arm, one without.
He has added other furniture to the range including a table, ‘Mrs Frank’ and ‘Edna 3’ a chest of draws with wavy, multi-coloured drawer fronts. I know exactly where it would all fit in my flat. The candy stripes on Anthony Hartley’s stand made it stand out boldly from the rest at Tent and testing out his pieces, I was literally like a kid in a candy store.
