The Subsonic Chair was originally designed by Greg Ball, an instructor of mechanical design technology at SAIT Polytechnic in Calgary, Alberta, as an entry into designboom’s ‘teenage furniture’ competition way back in 2005. The design placed in the top ten, but he’s only recently gotten around to making the chair a reality- a very, very loud reality. Designed for teenagers who enjoy both lounging and cranking their music, the Subsonic Chair sports a set of 16-inch subwoofers which you end up sitting on, letting you hear and feel pretty much every single note and/or sound when hooked up to an MP3 player or a gaming console.
The Salvage Stool from New Zealand’s designtree is a fantastic example of upcycling, re-purposing broken wooden chairs into someplace to sit again. But while the 3-legged design ensures it’s never going to wobble, I’m fairly pessimistic that anyone is ever going to get it perfectly level when mixing and matching chair legs. The seat is made from 100% recycled, shot-blasted aluminum with three holes for the legs which are secured with stainless steel bolts. And from what I can tell the Salvage Stool is available for sale and includes 3 pre-sized legs in random patterns and colors, but if you decide to do it yourself I suspect you’ll end up sawing your legs down to little nubs before you ever get the whole thing level.
Shrink wrap might be the bane of anyone eagerly trying to open a new purchase, but it turns out it’s also a handy material for making furniture! This Transparent Chair from Japanese design firm Nendo is made from three metal loops wrapped in polyurethane film that ends up supporting someone kind of a like a hammock. It certainly looks pretty comfortable, and creates the clever illusion of someone just floating in the air, but on the flipside given the film doesn’t breathe, it’s probably a real sweat factory on a hot Summer day. Thankfully though cleaning is probably as easy as just re-wrapping the frame in a fresh layer.
Oh sure, the invention of the wheel was a pretty big milestone in the history of mankind, but let’s not forget that before its creation our good old legs were more than capable of getting us around. So maybe it was designed as an homage to a simpler time before man got caught up in wheel-hysteria, but I have to say I really like this walking table from Wouter Scheublin which forgoes casters in favor of a set of legs to move it around.
A fairly simple set of wooden mechanics results in a natural walking motion of its 8 legs as you push it across the floor, but unfortunately it’s limited to motion in only one direction. Turning it or moving it lengthwise is out of the question… You win this round wheels!
The Walking Table is also exclusively available from Priveekollektie in a limited edition run of 8 walnut pieces, so if it’s not already sold out, you can safely assume it’s not going to be cheap.
I feel the same way about kid-sized furniture as I do about kid-sized designer clothes. Sure they both might look adorable, but what’s the point of spending all that money when your child is going to grow out of them in just a few months? But easy-to-assemble yet disposable cardboard furniture? Well that makes a lot more sense. This simple table and stools set can be put together without the need for any glue or adhesives, and when assembled the table can support up to 315lbs, while the stools can each support up to 750lbs! So adults are able to use them right alongside their kids.
As an added bonus, you have no reason to flip out if your progeny takes a black Sharpie to them to create their own custom designs, since refinishing cardboard furniture is a lot cheaper than refinishing the real thing. I just wish this set didn’t run $150 which pretty much cancels out all the advantages of buying cardboard furniture in the first place…
Sometimes there’s nothing more relaxing than sitting back and watching a good movie, but that’s not entirely true. Why expend all that energy to remain in an upright sitting position when Sapapa’s Tornado bed lets you lay back while still enjoying a surround sound experience? Thanks to a headboard embedded with an amp, a couple of speakers and a subwoofer, the Tornado can provide a pseudo home theater experience using a PhaseCue System which manipulates the audio signals to create a kind of surround sound effect. It’s no where near as convincing as a true 5.1 setup, but I doubt too many people need one of those in their bedroom.
The Tornado bed gets even better though. Using a hydraulic mechanism it can automatically adjust itself to four different positions so you don’t even have to sit up by yourself to better see the TV. Seriously, all it needs is some automated system for dealing with bed sores, maybe a feeding/water tube, and I don’t see any reason to ever get out of bed again. $3,600 to $3,800 depending on what size you want.
Mr. Beam (Mo Assem & Ruben van Esterik) is a small company based out of the Netherlands that specializes in giant lighting installations that use powerful video projectors to map graphics and animations over large buildings. But they’ve recently taken their expertise indoors with their fun Living Room concept.
Using only 2 projectors and some extremely careful planning and mapping, they’re able to project an entire 360° decor onto a living room filled with white furniture. This includes projected wallpaper and even carpeting. The concept, which is not unlike Michel Gondry’s Dead Leaves And The Dirty Ground video for The White Stripes (RIP) could make it really easy for interior decorators to try out an infinite number of pattern and color combinations before committing to a new decor in a room. That is if Mr. Beam ever decides to commercialize it.
I’m a sucker for unique furniture, so it’s not surprising that Chung-Tang Ho’s Push and Store Cabinet caught my eye. With just a cursory glance it looks like a curvy retro chest of drawers, but in lieu of drawers, doors or even shelves, it’s filled with a grid of thin wooden shafts that are all free to slide against each other. So to store a given item all you need to do is push it into the grid.
The downside of course is that you won’t be able to sit the Push and Store Cabinet against a wall, or even have anything behind it since the wooden shafts that have been displaced need someplace to go. And it’s only available as a limited edition piece from Droog, which roughly translates to you probably can’t afford it.
I really like the design of Younes Duret’s Ransa sofa which makes it look like the sitting area is floating over a floor-level bookshelf, but I have to question its practicality. I mean it’s nice to have a small library of reading material within arm’s reach when you’re lounging about, but as one of those guys who hates cracking the spine on his books and magazines, I’d be constantly worried about guests swinging their legs, constantly banging into my collection. But as I’ve discovered time and time again, maybe that’s just me…
As far as I can tell this is just a design concept, but I’m sure you can DIY one with an old futon and a collection of milk crates once you remove all the vinyl hippy.
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