I bought a folding camping chair in Japan which had a similar canvas seat on a bamboo and aluminium folding structure. I liked the comfort and character of it and decided to try and make it into an indoor chair. It wasn’t easy. The laminated bamboo of the original had a strength which was difficult to match with solid wood, and we failed a few load tests before we got it right.
The covers were developed with Alessio Canavese at Cuciflex and we made two models, one for dining and another more reclined version.
It’s extremely comfortable and I like the camping genes it has, but my vision of it as an indoor chair was not shared by the market unfortunately, who took it to be an outdoor chair. There are so many factors at play in the success or failure of a product that the slightest miscalculation can make the difference between them.
Extracted from A Book of Things by Jasper Morrison (Lars Müller Publishers, 2015)
