furniture

Peter Bristol’s “Cut Chair” (Photo: Peter Bristol)

With Helsinki poised to begin its reign as 2012 World Design Capital, a couple of crafty Finns have issued a challenge to designers worldwide: go a year without designing a chair. Carpenter/artist Eero Yli-Vakkuri and blacksmith/designer Jesse Sipola of Ore.e Refineries are spearheading the No Chair Design Challenge, with goals ranging from freeing up time for non-chair-design-related activities to altering the world’s view of sitting. “We believe that the world already has enough chairs. Designing new ones only takes time away from renovating the ones we already have,” say Sipola and Yli-Vakkuri. “Consider this the ultimate challenge for you to rethink how sustainable design should be manifested.” Show your support by committing not to design a chair in 2012 through their online petition. Beginning in January, the duo will solicit text message-based updates from participants about what they’ve accomplished when not designing chairs, and five designers will be rewarded with “DnS – Design and Craft Diplomas.” Take a seat—or better yet, stand—as you watch this video tutorial on how not to design chairs.

What started last fall now finally looks complete, as Design Within Reach looks to have fully transitioned into its new home. You might recall that back in October, the company announced that it would be leaving its longtime habitat of San Francisco and moving across the country, into a rehabbed industrial building in a revitalized area of Stamford, Connecticut. While most of the offices were finished up this past spring, with the rest of its staff moving in thereafter, just this week the company has opened its first floor as its newly christened Stamford Studio. A large 6,500 square foot space, it features 20 room sets, an accessories department, a 32-foot-long Design Bar, and more, the entire space designed by the New York-based firm Sayigh + Duman. While not as large as, say, the 7,700 square foot DWR we have here on North Ave. in Chicago (not to brag), you can bet that it’s sure to be the most attentive, up-to-date, and spotless in their entire retail chain, given that the big bosses are constantly just a floor above.

Update: DWR was kind enough to send us a couple of photos of their new offices (the ones upstairs). You’ll find them after the jump…

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Knoll’s Model 1500 Series desk (1956) designed by Florence Knoll and Model 70 chair (1950) designed by Eero Saarinen, Eclat (1974) designed by Anni Albers, and Jehs+Laub lounge chair (2008). (Photos from left: Knoll and Ilan Rubin for Knoll)

Following in the footsteps of organizations ranging from the U.S. Green Building Council and the Walker Art Center to Google and Adobe, Knoll is the winner of the 2011 National Design Award for Corporate and Institutional Achievement. The honor recognizes the East Greenville, Pennsylvania-based company’s use of design as a strategic tool and its efforts to advance the relationship between design and quality of life. Founded in 1938 by Hans Knoll on the conviction that good design enriches lives, the company pioneered the planning of office interiors under Florence Knoll (who turned 94 on Tuesday), championed modern design and innovative manufacturing processes, and has worked with designers from Alvar Aalto to Otto Zapf. “Everyone who has ever been involved in designing, manufacturing, or selling our products deserves credit for, and should take pride in, this award,” said Andrew Cogan, CEO of Knoll.

It’s been a busy May for the company, which earlier this month celebrated the opening of “Knoll Textiles, 1945–2010,” an exhibition on view through July 31 at the Bard Graduate Center, and is now completing final preparations for NeoCon in Chicago. So what does Knoll have in store for the mega trade show? “We will introduce ReGeneration, the latest member of the Generation family of chairs,” Cogan told us of the new streamlined piece designed by New Zealand-based Formway. Made from fewer parts, the chair uses post-consumer recycled content from soda bottles in its structure as well as corn-based renewable material and bio-based upholstery foam. Among other big Knoll NeoCon debuts are “enhancements to our Antenna Workspaces and Reff Profiles furniture lines, a new collection of conference tables designed by Lehman Smith McLeish, and the Krusin Seating Collection for KnollStudio, as well as new textiles from Dorothy Cosonas and Suzanne Tick.”

What if a loveseat wanted a divorce? We imagine the results would look something like Sebastian Brajkovic‘s “Lathe VIII” chair, a pair of grey-coated bronze chairs conjoined by a blur of silk upholstery. The Amsterdam-based designer created the chair in 2008 as part of a series that began as his graduation project at Design Academy, Eindhoven (he graduated all right, and landed a coveted internship at Studio Makkink Bey) and was inspired in part by the tools of graphic designers. “[The] extruding idea came from a Photoshop function where you can pick a row of pixels and extend them as long as you want,” Brajkovic has said. A closer look at the chair reveals a patina of nitric acid scars and needle-stitched embroidery of hippopotamuses and wildebeasts. The competition for this contemporary design icon (one of a limited edition of eight chairs entered the permanent collection of London’s Victoria & Albert Museum only months after it was created) is expected to be just as wild on April 7, when a “Lathe VIII” goes on the block at Phillips de Pury in London. It is estimated to sell for between £40,000 to £60,000 (roughly $65,000 to $95,000, at current exchange).

Now existing comfortably in their new Stamford, Connecticut headquarters, Design Within Reach is continuing their push toward renewal after a rocky couple of years. And where does one go to feel alive again? France, of course. The company has announced that it has signed an agreement with the French furniture company, Tolix, for the exclusive rights to not only sell their products, but “distribution rights on the sale of Tolix to hospitality, corporate, educational, health care, and institutional design customers.” A nice get, considering how many designers and firms had been upset with DWR during those last few years before the company underwent a massive turnaround and began apologizing to people like Alan Heller and others. Here’s a bit about the new agreement from DWR’s CEO, John Edelman:

“We are extremely proud to partner with French brand Tolix. Its widely recognizable chairs and stools have been furnishing French homes and businesses for more than 70 years, and its iconic A Chair is widely considered to be the cafe chair in France. As the exclusive provider of Tolix furniture for contract sales in North America, we look forward to expanding its presence.”

Furniture company Herman Miller has made a big move to enter into the potentially lucrative Chinese market this week, with the announcement that they will be attempting to acquire the Hong Kong-based POSH Office Systems. A similar company to Herman Miller, in that they design and build office furniture, some by a number of high-profile firms and individual designers, POSH posted sales of roughly $50 million last year and are expected to grow, given their opening of a new flagship store in Hong Kong last month. The two companies had been working together in a partnership since 2008, but this complete takeover should help give Herman Miller a strong push toward entering the Asian marketplace. The deal will take some to complete, working within “a legal structure in China necessary to complete the transaction.” If all goes as planned, the acquisition will be finalized in the first quarter of next year. Here’s word from Herman Miller’s CEO, Brian Walker:

“POSH has been a great partner and I’m delighted that they are joining the Herman Miller family. China is an enormous growth opportunity and through POSH we gain immediate access to the Chinese market. As the demand for high quality seating and furniture continues to grow in the region we anticipate a significant increase in the sales of Herman Miller products through the POSH dealer network. With an expanded product offer through POSH, we can also look beyond China to other markets and customers we’re not presently serving. Together we have a very bright future.”

As everyone gears up to either attend or hear all about the upcoming Salone Internazionale del Mobile design fair in Milan, one specific planned exhibition has been making the rounds this week. DuPont has partnered with Disney to bring to life “Tron Designs Corian,” which is exactly as it sounds. Though we suppose if you don’t know what Corian is, that part wouldn’t make sense. Here’s DuPont’s website all about the colored solid surfaces. Strangely though, for this odd pairing between the recent reboot movie and mold-able surfaces, there really isn’t much color involved, as you can see in this series of renderings the company has put up on Flickr. Though we suppose maybe the “mold-able” part is what they’re wanting to show off in this case. It’s all a bit odd, and we don’t think we’d want to live in any of the spaces (we’d be too afraid of getting it dirty), but we’d love to see it, if just outside of computer renderings of what they’re hoping it’ll look like come April when the fair kicks off. For further reading, we recommend checking out Designboom, who has lots of great details about the various designers who were hired worked on it.

Rich Brilliant Willing—the New York-based design studio behind some of our favorite tables, among other forward-looking furnishings—is preparing for its first solo exhibition. The RBW trio of Theo Richardson, Charles Brill, and Alexander Williams (pictured at right, defying gravity) will debut a limited-edition collection of personal storage pieces in “Pro Forma,” a show opening March 18 at Volume Gallery in Chicago. And speaking of furniture that moves with you, the new pieces were inspired by international air-shipping containers and what the designers identify as “a transient nature in the contemporary idea of home.” Expect sturdy yet luxuriously lacquered shelving with heavily chamfered corners and tables whose similarly rugged shapes are tamed by materials unaccustomed to being stuffed into a fuselage, including brass, leather, and American hardwoods. Think “steamer trunks in an age of global logistics,” note gallery founders (and Wright veterans) Claire Warner and Sam Vinz. Keep an eye on Volume’s website for more details about the exhibition.

If you’ve found that traveling to New York or Chicago or Miami for their various furniture and interior design expos has become routine, with all those same exhibitors every year and all the regulars wandering the booths, maybe you should start thinking about booking a flight to Iran. The nation is trying their hand at inviting foreign producers as part of their “first technical exhibition of office furniture and interior decoration,” held for three days at the end of the month at the Tehran Permanent International Fairgrounds. Reportedly, in addition to local designers, via the Iran Furniture Manufacturers and Exporters Union, they already have 145 foreign firms lined up to participate, coming from both Europe and Asia (no mention of US involvement, which doesn’t come as too great a surprise). There isn’t much more information available beyond those few details, but we’re going to keep our eyes peeled for when photos, post-exhibition, are hopefully posted. We’re curious to see what an Iranian international furniture/interior fair looks like.

It’s almost hard to believe that it’s been less than a year since writer Jeff Chu took a hard look at Design Within Reach for Fast Company, exposing more publicly the near-shambles it had found itself in after its first decade of existence. Since then, the company got itself a new CEO, patched things up with some of the designers it had wronged, closed stores, launched a series of higher-profile-than-usual promotions, and tried bumping up the value of their stock. Now they’ve made perhaps the second biggest shift in their year of change (hiring John Edelman as the new guy in charge certainly has to be the first), is the company’s announcement that they’re packing up, leaving San Francisco, and making Stamford, Connecticut their new headquarters. They’ll be moving into an existing building in an area called Harbor Point, a section the city is apparently making a big push to revitalize. No doubt the less expensive rent will also help a company still climbing out of some of the holes it dug for itself in the past. Here’s a bit from the official word about the move:

“We chose Stamford due to its proximity to New York City, vibrant available workforce, and the opportunity to be part of the exhilarating renewal taking place in Stamford’s South End,” said the company’s Chief Operating Officer John McPhee. “We look forward to having our corporate offices located directly above the newest Design Within Reach Studio, both of which will be in the former Yale and Towne lock factory at Harbor Point.”