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Looking for creative folding and stackable chair ideas? These chairs were created by independent top designers around the world. Note that not all of these products are available for purchase, and some are just prototypes, so use these for inspiration for new ideas. See our post on unique folding and stackable chairs to view products you can buy online today!
1. Light and Flexible Furniture – Flux Chair
The Flux Chair, designed by Douwe Jacobs and Tom Schouten, is a unique furniture design that transforms from a flat package with a handle into a design chair and back again. The chair is named Flux, referring to change and the words flexible and luxury. Following is some description by the designer, “Over the course of history, from the age of the Egyptians up to that of Napoleon, a folding chair has always been seen as an object of status and beauty. In recent times this focus has shifted. This is a pity; especially in today’s world, the concept of folding has so much to offer.
A folding chair not only saves valuable floor space and makes moving a breeze, more importantly, it allows you to sit down wherever you like. The beach, the park, you name it! Add to that the fact that it’s easy to send by mail, and thus drastically reducing CO2 emissions when transported efficiently in bulk, and you can see why in a modern world foldable furniture is as relevant as it ever was.
Keeping this in mind and being inspired by folded paper sculptures, I folded a tiny, elegant, paper scale model of a chair. Even though it was just a simple cut-out from a single sheet of paper, it was surprisingly strong. And even better: it didn’t look like anything I’d ever seen before.”
2. Rip Chair
Berlin-based design studio Läufer + Keichel has created the Rip Chair for German manufacturer Schneiderschram. It is a solid wood chair with a unique spring-loaded backrest that moves dynamically with your movements. The ribbed structure of the chair gives it a visually light appearance and provides perfect ventilation for the user. The Rip Chair can be stacked for storage.
3. FF1 – Unique Lounge Chair Design With a Twist
FF1 or Fox & Freeze 1 is an indoor lounge chair made from 1 square sheet of the synthetic shell. This simple and minimalist chair is designed by James van Vossel and Tom de Vrieze. In the designer’s words, “There is no loss of material (except the drilled holes), it is not supported with wood or metal or other. The structure is self-supporting, the flax rope contracts the chair and finishes the chair aesthetically. The shell and base are not separated from the sheet but remain connected. Starting from a square surface, the felt sheet is twisted and twisted again, just like a scarf, ending in asymmetric and but also an asymmetric object, this is literally forms follows function.”
4. Sweetch 18 Chair
Sweetch 18, designed by French designer Benoit Lienart, is versatile two-in-one furniture. It is a comfortable armchair that can be transformed into a coffee table or vice-versa when required. You can raise the center of the furniture for an armchair and lower the armchair back for a table. Sweetch 18 optimizes the space, comfort, and design by transforming the furniture with simple and easy gestures. The furniture is available in a variety of colors and material combinations. The Sweetch 18 is selected by L’Observeur du Design 2011 for the innovative new design.
In the designer’s words, “Sweetch18 is sleek and modern, deep and inviting. The wide armrests are large enough to comfortably pose any number of objects. As a coffee table, it is large, square, and perfectly proportioned. Two armchairs on a small terrace will transform into a long low table for Japanese style dining.”
5. Tip Ton Chair
Swiss furniture manufacturer Vitra has presented the Tip Ton Chair designed by Edward Barber & Jay Osgerby at the Milan Furniture Fair 2011. Tip Ton is a forward tilt-able, all-plastic chair which can be tilted forward from its normal position and will remain stationary at a 9-degree incline. The forward-slanted sitting position offered by the chair helps straightens the pelvis and spine thereby improving circulation through the stomach and back muscles. Made of polypropylene, the chair is available in eight different colors and can be stacked on one another.
Following is some information by the designer, “Tip Ton defines a whole new chair typology: the solid plastic chair with forward-tilt action. Its name refers to the two types of sitting experiences that characterize the chair – from a normal position, Tip Ton can be tilted a few degrees forward where it then stays in place. The innovation behind this seemingly simple feature lies in the skids, which rise at a nine-degree angle. The forward-tilt sitting position, until now the preserve of mechanical office chairs, straightens the pelvis and spine and thus improves circulation to the abdominal and back muscles. Thanks to its striking appearance, Tip Ton is an outstanding dining table or home-office solution; it is also ideal for use in restaurants, conference and meeting spaces and educational institutions.”
6. Osso Chair – Simple Wooden Furniture Design
Osso chair is simple wooden seating furniture designed by Italian designers Ronan & Erwan Bouroullec for Mattiazzi. Following is some information by the designers, “Working with Mattiazzi is comparable to work with an organic farm. While being a small, family-owned company that has been manufacturing chairs for others for about forty years, Mattiazzi decided to do less yet better. By using a sophisticated CNC set of tools and at the same time a greatly refined manual know-how, Mattiazzi has a hybrid way to consider furniture production.
We were particularly interested in the fact that all the equipment is powered by solar energy and that the wood is coming from the surrounding areas to be carefully selected without the use of any chemical treatments. They came back to the basics and this is precisely what piqued our interest and our fascination for the Mattiazzi family’s endeavor.
As designers, we feel involved in supporting such valiant microstructures that are always on the edge as they try to adjust to a constantly changing market. That said, the Osso chair had to be the illustration of what Mattiazzi is in its roots.
We designed an object in plain wood but not in regular plain wood, the quality of the wood literally makes the object, like the best piece of meat would make the refinement of a dish. Our intention was to let the sensuality of the wood material – from oak to maple to ash – express itself. The Osso chair invites to be touched, even caressed as it is extremely sculpted and polished thanks to the use of highly sophisticated digital control equipment. The high-tech assembling system of geometrical wood panels allows a quite singular strength while preserving the design balance of the object. The Osso collection will include a chair, an armchair, a children’s chair as well as high and low stools.”
