Cane chairs were popularized with Marcel Breuer’s 1928 Cesca Cane Chair, which paired a rattan seat and backing with a bent metal frame. Blanca’s design is more of a return to basics, not only in his use of traditional rattan, but because he doesn’t combine it with more modern materials. It’s simple and elegant, suitable for the kitchen or for a more formal dining table. I’d also imagine it promotes good posture. While it’s beautifully crafted that back looks none too comfortable. Here’s what Blanca himself has to say about his design:

“The project was born from the desire to take back rattan as a noble material, building on the rich tradition of craftsmanship in our country that supports its use. To that end, we tried to give the hundred-year-old technique a new look, which was achieved by substituting the traditional strutting and joint wrapping for a twinning technique to join one reed to the next. With this innovative option, we created a flexible yet resistant structure that is very lightweight. A light, warm, charming and luxurious, in the true meaning of the world, chair.”

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But there’s also a formal elegance at work here. Pugliese lets you see – in fact wants you to see – the joinery between the seat or the table top and the legs, and because this normally concealed aspect of furniture making is exposed, he takes full advantage of it by joining the stools together with fun and whimsical shapes. There’s an exclamation point, an X or a plus sign and a single line with two dots that become a round face.

Pugliese said the design was born from “a formal exercise that explores the mechanical and aesthetic value of plywood paired with black Raystone, which is a 100% organic petrol-free bio composite board produced from the waste of sugar production. Through digital controlled cutting technology and simple finishing work, the project seeks to deliver different solutions starting from a single type of joint. Like all members of a family, all pieces are slightly different but similar.”

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Which brings me to their best design feature (if it wasn’t obvious already): they stand on one leg, making them the pirates of the cabinet world. Really, their one-legged-ness comes from de Hoop’s devotion to minimalism, so minimal, in this case, that he did away with 75% of the product’s base. Still, they’re just as stable and function just as well as their quadraped counterparts.

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Designed for the Italian furniture manufacturer Mattiazzi, the chair was actually “born” on their factory floor. Grcic said “The chair was inspired by the material, the machinery and, of course, the skill and craftsmanship of the people we worked with…Right from the beginning, I was looking for a distinct grammar for my design, a language that would express the characteristics of wood. I liked the idea of working with planks. They signify the very beginning of the production process – a tree trunk that is cut into slices. I like the way in which a carpenter joins wood. It is immediate and direct. The construction remains visible and easy to read. Structure turns into form.”

Medici comes in three different kinds of wood: Walnut, Douglas Fir (in natural and yellow) and, for outdoors, thermo-treated Ash.

“Designing for Mattiazzi was like a personal time travel. It took me all the way back to my professional roots. At the very beginning of my career, I was trained a cabinet maker. Working with wood is what I learnt from scratch. It is where it all started for me.”

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“Upholstered furniture typically uses foam created in massive block molds and cuts it into smaller pieces that are added to a separate frame. Swell integrates these production elements by using the frame and fabric as the mold for the foam. This also allows the foam to acts as a binding agent, eliminating costly handwork.”

Griffin goes on to explain that Swell simplifies the production process. Instead of molding massive blocks of foam, cutting them down to size, gluing them to a wooden frame and then sewing the fabric on top, “Swell uses the fabric and frame as the original mold for the foam.” The result cuts down on production time and materials and, because the foam fills the fabric, “no material is wasted as cut-offs.” Furthermore, the foam acts as a binding agent between the fabric and frame so there’s no glue, extra adhesive or sewing necessary. And since the foam expands in the fabric in a slightly different way each time, every piece is unique.

Swell Stool and Bench are available from The Front Room’s online shop for $393 and $542, respectively.

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The MIA series also includes stacking armchairs, benches, tables and high stools. The line is being produced by EMU, the Italian furniture company, who notes that the collection “is a crystal-clear example of the spirit EMU brings to placing technological development at the top of its priority list, in an atmosphere buzzing with productive creativity. The whole concept stems from the RBC Design Centre in Montpellier, where three important elements were brought together: design, production and distribution.”

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After conducting an ergonomic study of office seating, designers Agata Karolina and Dana Cannam collaborated on the Hummingbird rocking chair, which was included in The Front Room‘s stellar presentation at Ca’Laghetto, Via Laghetto, Milan, during the Salone Del Mobile 2012. We usually associate a rocking chair with slow evenings on the porch, but Karolina and Cannam designed the Hummingbird to act as a meeting place between work and relaxation. When you’re seated upright at your desk it acts as a normal desk chair, but with just a slight tilt and shifting of weight “the chair creates an embracing sensation, producing the feeling of calm.” It’s perfect for an afternoon work break, just tilt back and away from your desk, relax, and then shift your weight forward when you’re ready to get back to your busy day.

I love the use of color and materials (I’m a sucker for anything with felt) and how it comes with a blanket that rolls up like a rucksack during the work day and unrolls when you want to take a break – and maybe a nap, too. From Karolina and Cannam:

“The hummingbird is a contemporary take on a classic rocking chair. The name reflects the calm state of suspension between being engaged and deep relaxation…The objects that surround us must adapt to a richer mix of uses, housing types, living and work situations. The Hummingbird accentuates this dynamic lifestyle without sacrificing the value of history and simplicity.”

Hummingbird is available from The Front Room’s online shop for $4,204.

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One of their recent projects, a vanity called Chandlo, is a perfect example of Doshi Levien’s ethos. The design for Chandlo draws inspiration from Bauhaus and, apparently, from the bindi worn by Indian women on their forehead. The elements from Bauhaus and De Stijl are obvious in the skinny, linear legs, the gridded pattern on the stool cushion and the strong, mirrored geometric shapes on the tabletop. The reference to the bindi is a little more conceptual and is rooted more in the general idea of the ritual of grooming.

Chandlo is composed of “a central, front faced mirror with a red steel frame, a side mirror with a rose colored filter and a plywood jewelry box with rosewood veneer, all structured on a solid ash surface.” From Doshi Levien’s website:

“Chandlo was designed as a special prototype made by BD Barcelona for Das Haus 2012. This was an installation by Doshi Levien for IMM Cologne that explored their vision of a perfect home. Das Haus consisted of interconnected spaces opening up to a central courtyard. The different areas of the home depended mainly on objects and furniture to define space.”

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“Design Soil is a design project by teaching staff and students, from the product design department at Kobe Design University, who are design lovers. As a design university, we have attempted to create a space which let young designers to think and create things one by one slowly yet steadily like plants grow in soil.”

Design Soil’s latest project is Epilogue-Prologue, a collection of pieces intended to “walk along together for a long period of time” – from the epilogue to the prologue, get it? Rollin’ Rollin’ stool is a basic beech-wood frame with a spindle attached to the base, allowing you to make use leftover yarn or the remnants of a old sweater. You create the cushion yourself (you might need two sweaters if you like it extra soft) and when it’s worn out simply take a jumper out your Goodwill donation bag and make yourself another.

Growth is a coat rack that’s almost too cute for words. Each movable hanger is assigned to a member of your family, so you can track the growth of your kids along the rack instead of marking up a perfectly nice doorway. My favorite, though, is Steps, a bench with a removable cushion. I love the simplicity of the bench but also the functionality of the cushion, shown here in classic robin’s egg blue. You can use in a couple of ways: as a bench with a tufted seat and room to the side for your papers or coffee. You can take the cushion out and use it somewhere else in the room or you can lift it out of its hole and let you child use it as a desk.

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Fortunately, Seifried didn’t think so either. His Stijl collection updates white to include raw birch wood and black to include shades of gray. Added bonus? It’s something of a BIY (build-it-yourself) unit. The main component is a desk with a bright yellow drawer. When you add any combination of the chair, seat, bench and corner bench piece, it becomes a dining table. If you buy two of each seating elements you get a full circle of seats. What’s Dutch for wunderbar? (Okay, I couldn’t help looking it up: prachtig!)







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